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THE 



LITERARY REMAINS 



OF THE LATE 



WILLIS GAYLORB CLAM. 



INCLUDING 



THE OLLAPODIANA PAPEES, 



SPIRIT OF LIFE, 



AND A SELECTION FROM HIS 



VARIOUS PROSE AND POETICAL WRITINGS. 



EDITED BY 



LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK 



FOURTH EDITION. 



NEW-YORK: 

STRINGER & TOWNSEND 

222 BROADWAY 

1851. 



IS 



C3^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, 

Ey LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK, 

in tlio Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United Slates, for the Southern District of 

New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY REDFIELD & SAVAGE, 
13 CHAMBERS STREET, N. Y. 



TO 

DAVID GRAHAM, Esq., 

OF NEW- YORK, 
Sis a STcsttmonial 

OF 

CORDIAL REGARD AND ESTEEM, 

THE ENSUING PAGES 

FROM THE PEN OF HIS LIFE-LONG FRIEND AND ADMIRER, 

are respectfully dedicated by 

The Editor. 



MEMOIR 



WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 



It was my purpose, in introducing the ensuing pages to the pubhc, to 
have accompanied them with a more elaborate Memoir of the lid of their au- 
thor than had hitherto appeared ; the chief additional attraction of which, 
however, I had hoped to present in extracts from his familiar correspon- 
dence. I say 'c/iic/" attraction,' because in the able Memoir from the pen 
of his eminent friend, Hon. Judge Conrad, of Philadelphia, published in 
' Graham's Magazine' for 1840, and in the excellent and authentic sketch 
which prefaces the selections from his verse in Mr. Griswold's 'Poets 
and Poetry of America' — of the former of which the Departed often expres- 
sed his approbation — all that is essential for the information of the reader 
was felicitously and succinctly embodied. But, as I have said, something 
more than this I had contemplated ; something which, under his own hand, 
and in the easy play of unstudied correspondence with his most intimate 
friend on earth, should be an exponent of his 'inner life,' his eveiy-day 
thoughts, impulses, and affections. Why I have not been able to do this, I 
shall now briefly explain. 

For many many months previous to the death of my twin-brother, that 
event was constantly in my mind, and tinged the whole current of my 
thoughts. Each sun that rose and set upon us, I ' counted toward his last 
resting-place;' and the slow-swinging pendulum of a clock, accidentally en- 
countered, appeared to me to have but one purpose; it was notching his re- 
sistless progress to an early grave. When the last bitter hour came ; when 
all that was mortal of my 'severed half had ceased to live; nothing it seemed 
could add to the poignant sense of present bereavement. I was told indeed 
that Time, the great Healer, would soften the bitterness of my regret ; that 
even the memory of a past son'ow might yet become 'pleasant, though 
mournful to the soul.' Among many letters which I received soon after 
Willis's death, was one which I can not resist the inclination to quote 
here: 

' Sunny side Cottage, July 8, 1841. 
» My Dkar Sir: 

' I HAVE not sooner replied to your letter of the eighteenth of June, com- 
municating the intelligence of the untimely death of your brother, because in 



6 MEMOIR OF 

fact I was at a loss how to reply- It is one of those cases in which all ordinary 
attempts at consolation are ajjt to appear trite and cold, and can never reach 
the deep-seated affliction- In such cases, it always appears to me bettei 
to leave the heart to struggle with its own soitows, and medicine its own ills; 
and indeed, in healtliful minds, as in healthful bodies. Providence has benefi- 
cently implanted self-healing qualities, that in time close up and almost ob- 
literate the deepest wounds. 

' I do not recollect to have met your brother more than once,* but our 
inteiTiew left a most favorable impression, which was confirmed and strength- 
ened by all I afterward knew of him. His career, though brief, has been 
useful, honorable, popular, and I trust generally happy; and he has left be- 
hind him writings which will make men love his memory and lament his loss. 
Under such circumstances, a man has not lived in vain ; and though his 
death be premature, there is consolation to his survivors springing from 
his very grave. 'Believe me, my dear sir, 

' Yours very truly, 

'Washington Irving. 

»L. Gatlord Clark, Esq.' 

Replete with characteristic feeling and beauty as is this most kind note, 
which is cited as one of many kindred letters of condolence that reached me 
at this period, I can not let it pass to the reader without saying, even at the 
risk of exposing a mind bereft of self-healing qualities, and unhealthful, that 
the deep wound which I have received only yawns the wider with the lapse 
of time. Although ' it is only dust that descends to dust ;' although it was 
"not the brother, the friend, the cherished being,' that went down into the 
grave, to sleep in cold obstruction ; yet it is to that grave that Memoiy still 
points the unmoving finger. There every phase of nature is earliest marked. 
There springs the first tender green of the early spring-time ; there upon 
the long grass shimmers down the sun-light through the heavy foliage of 
thick-leaved Jitne ; there wails the November wind ; there rustle the withered 
leaves and fall the ' sorrowing rains' of melancholy autumn ; and there, in 
the howling midnight storm, over the walls of St. Peter's church-yard, Win- 
ter 'weaves his frolic architecture of snow.' There, features once radiant 
with intellectual light have faded into indistinctness ; there the eye that loved 
to look upon all the glorious works of God, is closed to color, and the ear to 
sound; there the warm hand, whose cordial grasp of fraternal afiection can 
never be forgotten, moulders at the cnmibling side. And upon the corres- 
pondence traced through many years by that now wasted hand, I can not yet 
look. Since the announcement, by the publishers, of the immediate issue 
of the present work, I have tried repeatedly to overcome this reluctance, but 
I can not. It may be a morbid feeling — doubtless it is; but it is not less cer- 
tain that with me it is irresistible. ' There is some latent, some mysterious 

• Thev met in an official capacity, I believe, at the nuptials of an old and valued 
friend of my brother's, David Graham, Esq., of New York. The interview is 
jileasantly alluded to in one of llie ' Ollapodiana' chapters which ensue. 



WILLIS GAYLOllD CLARK. 7 

yet undeniable connection' (says an eloquent writer, in allusion to the corres- 
pondence of departed friends) ' between those lifeless manuscripts and the 
beings whose affections seem even yet to haunt and hover round them ; and 
the pulse beats, and the blood gushes through the loyal heart, as it vibrates 
again to the well-remembered words, and half listens for the voice that might 
have uttered them.' It is this ordeal which I can not yet brave. 

Let me hope, therefore, that the reader will receive my apology for omit- 
ting what I had hoped to be able to present; and accept the following brief 
Memoir, as embracing all the essential facts in the history of its subject. 
We quote from the article in ' Graham's Magazine' to which we have al- 
luded: 

' Of the several excellent writers whose names we have placed upon our 
catalogue as worthy of the honor we intend to do them (a series of portraits 
of popular Philadelphia authors, accompanied by suitable notices of their 
lives and works,) the first we select is that of Willis Gatlord Clark, whose 
rare abilities as a poet, and whose qualities as a man, justify this distinction. 
The life of a student is usually, almost necessarily, indeed, uneventful. Dis- 
inclined by habit and association, and generally unfitted by temperament, to 
mingle in the ruder scenes, the shocks and conflicts that mark the periods 
of sterner existence, his biography furnishes but few salient points upon 
which an inquirer can take hold. In the little circle which his affections 
have gathered around him, he finds abundant sources of enjoyment and inter- 
est ; and though the world without may ring with his name, he pursues his 
quiet and peaceful way, undisturbed by, if not insensible to, its praises. Such 
has been eminently the case with the subject of this notice. With feelings 
peculiarly fitted for social and domestic intercourse, and a heart overflowing 
with the wannest and most generous impulses, and a shrinking sensitiveness 
to obtioisive public regard, Mr. Clark has always sought those scenes in 
which, while his talents found free scope, his native modesty was unwounded, 
and he could exercise without restraint the loftier charities of his nature. 

' Mr. Clark was born in Otisco, a rich agricultural town in the county of 
Onondaga, in the State of New York. His father was a soldier in the days of 
the revolution, whose valor and services won for him tributes of acknowledg- 
ment from the delegates of a grateful nation. He was, moreover, a man of 
reading and talent, fond of collecting and studying useful books, and much 
given to pliilosophical pursuits and inquiries. In his son Willis he found 
an apt and anxious pupil ; and the judicious teachings of the father, aided by 
the classic inculcations of the Rev. George Colto.x, a maternal relative, laid 
a broad and solid foundation for those acquirements which have since added 
grace and vigor to the outpourings of genius. At a very early age, Mr. Clark 
manifested poetic inclinations. Amid the glorious scenery that was outspread 
on every side of him, he soon began to feel the yearnings of his Divine nature. 
The spirit that was within him, stimulated by the magnificence of these ex- 
ternal objects, could not be repressed; and he painted the beauties of plain 
and mountain ; of the flower-clad valley and the forest-crowned hill; of the 
gorgeous going down of the sun amid a profusion of dazzling tints and hues 
such as nowhere else accompanied his setting; of the rich and vari-colored 



8 MEMOIR OF 

autumnal foliage that shone in melancholy brightness; of the clear lake, 
whose unruflled bosom was placid as the soul of peace ; in terms so glow- 
ing, and with a distinctness and force, that showed an eye so quick to per- 
ceive, and a mind so capable to appreciate, the loveliness of creation, that 
it at once secured to him praise and admiration. As he grew older, there was 
mingled with this exquisite power of description a tone of gentle solemnity, 
a delicate sadness of thought ; a strain of seriousness such as showed a para- 
mount desire to gather from the scenes and images reflected through his po- 
etical faculties, useful lessons of morality. We remember very well when 
our attention was first drawn to his productions, and he was then but a boy, 
that we were impressed with the fact just mentioned; and we admired that 
one so young, should thus address himself directly to the hearts of his read- 
ers, and stir up within them founts of tenderness and piety. 

'After completing his scholastic course, Mr. Clark repaired to Philadel- 
phia, whither his reputation as a poet of much skill and a high degree of 
promise, had already preceded him. Soon after his arrival, under the aus- 
pices of the Rev. Dr. Ely, his patron and friend, he started a literary jour- 
nal, similar in its design and character to the 'INIirror' of New York. Young, 
inexperienced, and therefore incapable of managing the business details of 
this undertaking with the necessary regai-d to its economy, he found that the 
profits were disproportioned to the labor, and was soon induced to abandon 
it. He conducted it, however, long enough to show that his powers of wri- 
ting were not confined to poetry alone, but that in various departments of prose 
literature, previously unattempted by him, he possessed great aptitude ; and 
his criticisms on books and the arts indicated a vigorous and well-disciplined 
taste, considerable power of analysis, just discrimination, and above all, a 
generous forbearance toward all who were the subjects of his commentaries. 
About the time this project failed, the Rev. Dr. Brantley, a Baptist cler- 
gyman of great eminence, then in the pastoral charge of a church in this 
city, and now President of the College of South Carolina,* assumed the care 
of the 'Columbian Star,' a religious and literary periodical, and associated 
Mr. Clark with him in its conduct. From this connection Mr. Clark de- 
rived many advantages. To an intellect of the very highest order; a copious 
supply of various and rare learning; an eloquence which illuminated what- 
ever it was applied to ; a remarkable purity and clearness of style, and the 
most vigorous habits of thought, Dr. Brantley united a spirit touched with 
the finest impulses of humanity, and an affability of demeanor, which, while 
it imparted grace to his manner, made him in all circumstances, easy and 
accessible. Upon his young friend and associate, these qualities acting with 
a sympathetic influence, produced a lasting and most salutary impression. 
The counsels of the divine pointed him to the path in which he ought to 
tread ; the example of the scholar inspired him with a generous emulation ; 
and the mild benevolence of the Christian gentleman taitght him the im- 
portance of cultivating benignity of temper, and of subduing all untoward 

• Tras institution subsequently bestowed upon Mr. Clauk the honorary degree of 
Bachelor of Arts. 



WILLIS GAYLORD. CLARK. 9 

passions. While he was connected with the 'Columbian Star,' Mr. Clark 
published numerous fugitive pieces of a high grade of merit. Most of these 
he suffered to remain uncollected, though many of them were stamped with 
all the marks of genius. A few were afterward published in a duodecimo 
volume, along with a poem of considerable length, called the ' Spii'it of Life,' 
originally prepared as an exercise for a collegiate exhibition. 

» Mr. Clark, after an agreeable and instructive association with the rev- 
erend editor of the ' Columbian Star,' was solicited to take charge of the 
'Philadelphia Gazette,' the oldest and one of the most respectable daily jour- 
nals published in this city. With this solicitation he saw proper to comply, 
and from the grateful cultivation of polite literature, he turned to the dry 
and fatiguing duty of superintending the multifarious concerns of a political, 
commercial, and advertising newspaper. In his new vocation, he acquitted 
himself with credit and honor, and ultimately became the proprietor of the 
establishment, which he continued to manage and direct until within a few 
days of his death. Though avowedly partisan in his predilections, and doing 
battle in good earnest for the cause which he espoused, Mr. Clark never 
sacrificed his own opinions to any question or suggestion of expediency. 
Never slavish, never even submissive to the dictates of self-assumed author- 
ity, he upon Sll occasions preserved a fair, free, and upright policy, which de- 
ser\'edly placed him high in the estimation of all honest and independent men. 

' In 1836, Mr. Clark was married to Axne Potntell Caldcleugh, the 
daughter of one of our most wealthy and respectable citizens. In tliis lady 
great personal beauty and varied accomplishments were joined to a most 
tender and affectionate disposition, a meekness and serenity of mind, that 
nothing could disturb. With such qualities in his bride, qualities that found 
an answering echo in his own bosom, the married career of Mr. Clark was 
for a time one of unclouded sunsliine. Unhappily, his wife, whose consti 
tution was naturally delicate, was seized with that most temble disease of 
our climate, consumption, and after a long period of protracted suffering, 
which she bore with a meekness and gentleness that endeared her infi- 
nitely to her friends, she was taken away in the very prime of her youth 
and happiness. A blow like this fell with a crushing weight upon the hope? 
and enjoyments of her surviving partner ; and in various tributes to hej 
memory, he evinced the deep grief of his afflicted spirit. 

' Of Mr. Clark's general merits as a poet but one opinion can be enter- 
tained. In the sweetness of his numbers, the elegance of his diction, the 
propriety of his sentiments, and the chasteness of his imagery, he is scarcely 
surpassed by any living writer. His earlier productions, as we have already 
said, are all tinged by a hue of sadness, but it is a sadness without gloom ; 
and while they vividly portray the chances and changes of life, and the shift- 
ing aspects of nature, they inculcate the important truth that there is a higher 
and a better world, for which our affections are chastened, and our de- 
sires made perfect by suffering. In an extended notice of Mr. Clark's 
writings, published in the ' American Quarterly Review,' we find a concise 
and forcible delineation of his peculiarities and style. After some general 
remarks, the reviewer says : 



10 MEMOIR OF 

' With the exception of a small volume published some years since, we believe that 
Mr. Clark's effusions have not been colJected. They have appeared at irregular and 
often remote intervals ; and though tlieir beauty and })athos have won tlie applause of 
the first WTiters of this country and England, tliey have not made that iuipressioa 
which if united they could not fail to produce. Mr. Clark's distinguishing traits are 
tenderness, pathos, and melody. In stj'le and sentiment he is wholly original, but if 
he resemble any writer, it is Mr. Uryant. The same lofty tone of sentiment, the 
same touches of melting pathos, the same refined sympathies with the beauties and 
harmonies of nature, and the same melody of style, characterise, in an ahnost equal 
degree, these delightful poets. The ordinary tone of Mr. Clark's poetry is gentle, 
solemn, and tender. His efiusions flow in melody from a heart full of the sweetest af- 
fections, and upon their surface is mirrored all that is gentle and beautiful in nature, 
rendered more beautifid by the light of a lofty and religious imagination. He is one 
of the few Avritcrs who have succeeded in making the poetry of religion attractive. 
Young is sad, and austere, Cowper is at times constrained, and Wordsworth is much 
too dreamy for the mass ; but with Clark religion is unalTectccUy blended with the 
simplest and sweetest alTections of the heart. His poetry glitters with the dew, not 
of Castaly, but of heaven. No man, however cold, can resist the winning and natural 
sweetness and melody of the tone of piety that pervades his poems. AH the voices 
of nature speak to him of religion ; he 

' Finds tongues in trees, books in the ninning brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everytliing.' 

There is not an effusion, and scarce a line in his poetical writings that is not replete 
with this spirit. The entire absence of affectation or artifice in Mr. Clark's poetry 
also deserves the highest commendation. Though always poetical he is always natu- 
ral ; he sacrifices nothing for effect, and does not seek his subjects or his figures from 
the startling or the extravagant. There is an unilbrm and uninterrupted propriety in 
his writings. His taste is not merely cultivated and refined, but sensitively fastidious, 
and shrinks, with instinctive delicacy, from anything that could distort the tranquil 
and tender beauty of his lines. His diction is neither quaint nor common-place, bloat- 
ed nor tame, but is natural, classic, and expressive. In the art of versification, he ap- 
pears to be nearly perfect ; we know no poet in the language who is more regular, ani- 
mated, and euphonious. 

' The Spirit of Life' is one of the most labored, though certainly not the most suc- 
cessful of Mr. Clark's poems. It occupies the larger portion of the only volume 
which he has given to the public. The dedication, though we confess it is not pre- 
cisely to our taste, is enthusiastic and fervid. It is excused, however, by the general 
admiration at that time manifested for the author of Pelham, and was perhaps due as 
a grateful tribute to a distinguished author, who had previously spoken of his poems 
in high terms, and of himself as a gentlemen, • who has an enviable genius, to be ex- 
cited in a new and unexhausted country, and a glorious career before him, where, in 
manners, scenery, and morals, hitherto undescribed and unexhausted, he can find 
wells where he himself may be the first to drink.' 

' As a prose waiter, Mr. Cl.ark possesses a rare combination of dissimilar qualities. 
At times eloquent, vehement, and impassioned, pouring out his thoughts in a fervent 
tide of strong and stirring language, he sweeps the feelings of his readers along with 
him ; and at others playful, jocular, and buoyant, he dallies with his subject, and min- 
gles mirth and argument, drollery and gravity, so oddly, yet so aptly, that the effect 
is irresistible. Few men have a more acute perception of the ludicrous ; few under- 
stand better how to move the strings of laughter, and when he chooses to indulge in 
strains of humor, his good-natured jests, and ' quips and cranks and wanton wiles,' show 
the fullness of his powers, and the benevolent strain of his feelings. In kindness and 
pathos, when such is the bent of his inclination, his prose essays are not inferior to 
his poetical compositions.' 

' Mr. Clark was for many years a liberal contributor to the periodical and 
annual literature of this country. He was also a frequent coirespondent of 
the leading English magazines. 'The tales and essays,' says the author of 
'The Poets and Poetry of America,' 'which he found leisure to write for 
the New York Kmckerbockkr Magazine, and esjiecially a series of amu- 
sing papers under the quaint title of ' Ollapodiana,' will long be remem- 
bered for their heart-moving and mirth-provoking qualities.' 

A portrait accompanied the sketch to which we have referred ; but it 



WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 11 

failed to present a faithful representation of the features of its subject. In 
person Mr. Clark was of the middle height ; his form was erect and manly, 
and his countenance pleasing and expressive. In ordinary intercourse he 
was cheerful and animated, and he was studious to conform to the conven- 
tional usages of society. Warm-hearted, confiding, and generous, he was 
a true friend ; and by those who knew him intimately, he was much beloved.' 

The following account of the last hours of the subject of this Memoir 
was written by the undersigned for the 'Editor's Table' of the Knicker- 
bocker Magazine for July, 1841 : 

' Our brother is no more !' Death, the pale messenger, has beckoned 
him silently away ; and the spirit which kindled with so many elevated 
thoughts; which explored the chambers of human affection, and awakened 
so many warm sympathies ; which rejoiced with the glad, and grieved with 
the sorrowing, has ascended to mansions of 'eternal repose. And there is 
one, reader, who above all others feels how much gentleness of soul, how 
much fraternal affection and sincere friendship; how much joyous hilarity, 
goodness, poetry, have gone out of the world; and he will be pardoned for 
dwelling in these pages, so often enriched by the genius of the Departed, 
upon the closing scenes of his earthly career. Since nearly a twelve-month 
the deceased has ' died daily' in the eyes of the writer of this feeble tribute. 
He saw that Disease sat at his heart, and was gnawing at its cruel leisure ; 
that in the maturity of every power, in the earthly perfection of every fac- 
ulty ; ' when experience had given facility to action and success to endeavor,' 
he was fast going down to darkness and the worm. Thenceforth were trea- 
sured up every soul-fraught epistle and the recollection of each recurring 
interview, growing more and more frequent, until at length Life like a spent 
steed ' panted to its goal,' and Death sealed up the glazing eye and stilled 
the faltering tongue. Leaving these, however, with many other treasured 
remains and biographical facts for futiu-e reference and preseiTation in this 
Magazine, we pass to the following passages of a letter recently received 
from a late but true friend of the lamented deceased, Rev. Dr. Ducachet, 
Rector of St. Stephen's Church, Philadelphia ; premising merely, that the 
reverend gentleman had previously called upon him at his special instance, 
in the last note he ever penned ; that ' his religious faith was manifested in 
a manner so solemn, so frank, and so cordial,' as to convince the affectionate 
pastor that the failing invalid, aware that he must die of the illness under 
which he was suflering, had long been seeking divine assistance to prepare 
him for the issue so near at hand : 

'At four o'clock on Friday p. ji. the day before his death, I saw him 
again, he himself having selected the time, thinking that he was strongest 
in the afternoon. But there was an evident change for the worse; and he 
was laboring under fever. His religious feelings were however even more 
satisfactory, and his views more clear, than the day before. He assured me 
that he enjoyed a sweet peace in his mind, and that he had no apprehen- 
sion about death. He was ' ready to depart' at any moment. I was unwil- 
ling to disturb him l)y much talkinc;. or a very long visit, and made several 



12 MEMOIR OF 

attempts to leave liim ; but in the most aftectionate and pressing manner, 
not to be resisted, he urged me to remain. His heart seemed full of joy and 
peace ; overflowing with gratitude to God for his goodness, and with kind- 
ness to me. Leaving him, after an hour's intei-view, I promised to return 
on Saturday a. m., at ten o'clock, and to administer baptism to him then. This 
was done accordingly, in the presence of his father-in-law, and three or four 
other friends and connexions, whom he had summoned to his bed, as he 
told me, for the express purpose of letting them see his determination to 
profess the faith of the gosjjcl which in life he had so long neglected. It 
was a solemn, moving sight; one of the most interesting and affecting I ever 
saw. More devotion, humility, and placid confidence in God, I never saw 
in any sick man. I mentioned to him that as his strength was evidently de- 
clining, it would be well for him to say every thing he desired to say to me 
then, as his voice and his faculties might fail. He then affectionately placed 
his arms around my neck ; gently drew my ear near to his lips, that I might 
hear his whispers; and after thanking me over and over again for my small 
attentions to him, which his gratitude magnified into very high senices, he 
proceeded to tell me what he wished done with his ' poor body.' He expres- 
sed very great anxiety to see you, and he very much feared that he should 
die before your expected an-ival at midnight. But he said he left that mat- 
ter and every other to God's disposal. As I was leaving him, he said, ' Call 
again to-day,' which I promised to do in the evening. He told me he felt a 
happy persuasion that when he passed from this miserable world and that 
enfeebled body, he should enter upon ' the inheritance incorruptible, unde- 
filed, and that fadeth not away.' He asked : ' Do you obseiTc how these 
words labor to convey the idea of Heaven's blessedness to our feeble minds? 
' The inheritance z?icorrM^j<?liZc .'' Beautiful thought! ^ Undefilcd' — more 
beautiful still! ' That fadeth not away' — most beautiful of all! I think I 
understand something of the ])eace and glory these redoubled words were 
designed to express.' And then, raising his wasted hand, with great em- 
phasis he said, 'I shall soon know all about it, I trust!' 

' In the evening, about seven o'clock, I received a message from him to 
come immediately to him. I was there by eight. I was surprised to find 
that he had rallied so much. There was a strength I had not seen before ; 
and his fine open features were lighted up with unusual brilliancy. In every 
way he seemed better; and I flattered myself that he would live to see you, 
and even hold out for a day or two more. I had much charming conversa- 
tion with him about his state of feeling, his views of himself as a sinner, 
and of God, and of Jksus Christ as a precious Saviour, and of heaven, etc. 
He then handed me a prayer-book, adding, 'That was my Anne's,' mean- 
ing his wife's. ' Now read me the ofKice for the sick in this book. I want 
the whole of it. I have read it myself over and over, since you pointed it 
out to me, and it is delightful.' He then repeated the sentence, ' I know 
that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand in the latter day upon the 
earth,' and asked if that was not a part of it. I told him that that belonged 
to the burial service. 'Then,' said he, ' it is quite suitable for me, for it will 
soon be read by you over my grave.' I sat by his bed, and found the place. 



WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 13 

Waiting in silence to receive his signal to begin, I thought he was engaged 
in secret prayer, and was unwilling to interrupt him. But he remained si- 
lent so long, seeming to take no notice of me, that I spoke to him. 1 found 
that his mind was wandering, and that speech had failed. He muttered in- 
distinctly only. From that moment, he sank gradually away. His ema- 
ciated limbs were retracted and cold ; his pulse failed ; the shadow of death 
gathered fast and dark upon his countenance ; his respiration became feebler 
and feebler; and at last, at precisely five minutes past ten, he died. So im- 
perceptibly and gently did his happy spirit flee away, that it was some time 
before we could ascertain that he had gone. I never saw a gentler death. 
There was no pain, no distress, no shuddering, no violent disruption of the 
ties of life. Both as to the mind's peace and the body's composure, it was 
a beautiful instance of evOavaaia. The change which indicated the approach 
of his last moment, took place about half an hour only before he died. 
Such, my dear Sir, are all the chief particulars I can remember, and which 
I have thought you would desire to know.' 

A FEW summary ' Reflections' upon the character of the lamented de- 
ceased succeed, which although intended, as wiis the foregoing, only for a 
brother's eye, we cannot resist the desire to cite in this connexion : 

' He was, so far as his character revealed itself to me, a man of a most 
noble, frank, and generous nature. He was as humble as a little child. He 
exhibited throughout most remarkable patience. He never complained. 
But once, while I was on bended knees, praying with him for patience to be 
given him, and acknowledging tliat all he had suffered was for the best, he 
clasped his hands together, and exclaimed, 'Yes! right, right — all right!' 
• • • He Avas one of the most affectionate-hearted men I ever saw. Every 
moment I spent with him, he was doing or saying something to express to me 
his attachment. He would take my hand, or put his arm around my neck, 
or say something tender, to tell me that he loved me. He showed the same 
kind feeling to his attendants, his faithful nurse, Rebecca, and to the hum- 
blest of the servants. • • • He was of course, with such a heart, grateful 
for the smallest attentions. He received the most trifling office with thanks. 
I observed this most remarkably on the evening of his death. I had taken 
my son with me, that he might sit up with him on Saturday night, if occa- 
sion should require. Wlien I mentioned that the youth was in the room, he 
called for him ; welcomed him most kindly, thanked him over and over for 
his friendly intentions ; and in fact, broke out into the warmest expressions of 
gratitude for what his sensitive and generous heart took to be a high act of 
favor. All this was within an hour and a half of his death. • • • Finally, 
I believe he was a truly religious man. I have no doubt that he was fully 
prepared for his end; and that through the sacrifice of the cross, and the 
Saviour who died there for sinners, he was pardoned and accepted. He has 
gone, I feel persuaded, to the abodes of peace, where the souls of those who 
sleep in the Lord Jesus enjoy perpetual felicity and rest.' 



14 MEMOIR OF 

Surely all who peruse the foregoing affecting record, may exclaim with 
the poet whom we lament : 

' It were not sad to feel the heart 

Grow passionless and cold — 
To feel those longings to depart, 

That cheered the saints of old ; 
To clasp the faith which looks on high, 
Which fires the Christian's dying eye, 

And makes the curtain-fold 
That falls upon his wasting breast 
The door that leads to endless rest. 

It were not lonely, thus to lie 

On that triumphant bed, 
Till the free spirit mounts on high. 

By white-winged seraphs led ; 
Where glories earth may never know, 
O'er ' many mansions' lingering, glow. 

In peerless lustre shed ; 
It were not lonely thus to soar 
Where sin and grief can sting no more ." 

One of the Philadelphia journals, in announcing his demise observes: 
' Mr. Clark was a scholar, a poet, and a gentleman. 'None knew him but 
to love him.' His heahh had for a long time been failing. The death of 
his accomplished and lovely wife, a few years ago, upon whom he doated 
with a passionate and rapturous fondness, had shiilcen his constitution, and 
eaten his strength. None but intimate friends knew the influence of that 
sad affliction upon his physical frame. To the last his heart yearned over 
the dust of that lovely woman. In his death-chamber, her portrait stood 
always before him on his table, and his loving eye turned to it even in ex- 
tremest pain, as though it were his living and only friend.' This is literally 
true. Beyond question, moreover, the seeds of the disease which finally 
removed him from the world, were ' sown in sorrow' for the death of the 
cherished companion of his bosom. His letters, his gradually-declining 
health, his daily life, his published writings, all evince this. The rost; on 
the cheek and the canker at the heart do not flourish at the same time 
The MS. of the * Dirge in Antumn^ came to us literally sprinkled with 
spreading tear-drops ; and the familiar correspondence of the writer is re- 
plete with kindred emotion. To the last moment of his life, he kept a col- 
lection the letters of 'his Anne' under his pillow, which he as regularly pe- 
rused every morning as his Bible and prayer-book. Her portrait, draped in 
black, crossed the angle of the apartment, above his table, where it might 
gaze ever upon him with its ' large, bright, spiritual eyes.' Never shall we 
forget his apostrophe to that beautiful picture, when his 'flesh and his heart 
failed him,' and he knew that he must soon go hence, to be here no more : 
' Sleep on, my love!' said he, in the beautiful and touching words of the 
Bishop of Chichester's 'Exequy on the Death of a Beloved Wife,' and in a 
voice scarcely audible through his frequent sobs : 

' Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed, 
Never to be disquieted : 
My last ' good night' ! — thou wilt not wake 
Till I thyfate shall overtake : 



WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 15 

Till age, or grief, or sickness, must 

Marry iiiy body to that dust 

It so inucn loves ; and fill tlie room ^ 

My heart keeps vacant in thy tomb. 

' Stay for me there ; I will not fail 
To meet thee in that hoUow vale ; 
And think not much of my delay, 
I am already on the way ; 
And follow thee with all the speed 
Desire can make, or sorrows breed. 
Each minute is a short degree, 
And every hour a step toward thee ; 
At night, when I betake to rest, 
Next morn I rise nearer my West 
Of life, almost by eight hours' sail, 
Than when Sleep breathed his drowsy gale.' 

Most just the tribute we have seen paid to the affection and patience and 
grateful spirit of the deceased. To the last, his heart was full-fraught with 
all lender reminiscences and associations. In tlie first stages of his illness, 
when as yet it was scarcely known to affect his general routine of life, he 
thus replies to a remonstrance from the writer against the growing infre- 
quency of his familiar letters: 'In these spring days, Lewis, all my old 
feelings come freshly up, and assure me that I am unchanged. I shall be 
the same always; so do you be. 'Twinn'd, both at a birth,' the only 
pledges of our parents' union, we should be all the world to each other : 

' We are but two — a little band — 

Be faithful till we die ; 
Shoulder to shoulder let us stand, 
Till side by side we lie !' 

As he gradually grew weaker and weaker, the ' childhood of the soul' 
seemed to be renewed ; the intellectual light to burn brighter and brighter, 
and the chastened fancy to become more vivid and refined. He was for some 
months aware that he had not long to live. ' I shall die,' said he, a few 
weeks since, 'in the leafy month of June; beautiful season!' And turning 
his head to gaze upon the trees in the adjoining cemetery-grove, whose 
heavy foliage was swaying in the summer wind, he murmured to himself the 
touching lines of Bryant : 

' I know, I know I shall not see 

The season's glorious show. 
Nor will its brightness shine for me, 

Nor its wild music flow ; 
But if around my place of sleep 
The friends I love shall come to weep, 

They may not haste to go : 
Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom, 
Will keep them lingering by my tomb : 
These to their softened hearts will bear 

The thought of what has been. 
And speak of one who cannot share 

The gladness of the scene.' 

How forcibly were the recollections of this scene borne in upon the 
mind, as the long procession, following the friend for whom they mourned, 
defiled into the gates of St. Peter's, on that brightest morning of the month 
of his heart ; the officiating divine from whom we have quoted chaunting elo 



16 MEMOIR, ETC. 

queatly the while the touching and beautiful service for the dead ! • • • But 
he has gone ! leaving behind him a name to live, as we trust, in the 
heart of the nation. As a moral poet, we know not a line which dying he 
could have wished to blot. He was an American, in all his heart, and loved 
to dwell upon the future destiny of his beloved country. He was a sincere, 
unvarying, unflinching Fxiiknd ; and although in his long career as editor 
of an influential daily journal, and in his enlarged intercourse insociety, it were 
not strange were it otherwise, yet it has been truly remarked by one of his 
contemporaries — all of whom, let us gratefully add, have borne the warm- 
est testimony to his genius and his worth — that 'it may be said Mr. Clark 
had no enemy, and only encountered attacks from one or two coarse and 
unworthy sources, against which no character, however gentle anddesei-ving, 
could have immunity.' Another observes, that ' it was in the character of 
an editor that he won upon the feelings and affections of so many, and enti- 
tled himself to the regard of his brethren of the press, toward whom he al- 
ways acted with courtesy ; positive, when invited by kindred propriety ; 
negative, when he believed unkindness or inability to appreciate courtesy 
existed.' So to live among his fellow men as did the deceased, and at last, 
' with heart-felt confidence in God, and the sacramental seal almost fresh 
upon his brow, gently to fall asleep in Jesus, looking with a Christian's hope 
for a Christian's reward,'* surely thus 'to die is gain!' And in view of 
such a hope and such an end, well may we who, left behind to drag a 
maimed life, exclaim with the poet : 

' DeatK ! thy freezing kiss 
Emancipates — the rest is bliss — 
1 would I were away !' 

It may not be amiss to explain, in closing, that ' Ollapodiana' is intended 
to designate the (\imiliar chat or gossip, of a personage like Dr. Ollapod 
in the play, upon all such themes as may chance to enlist the fancy or touch 
the heart. The different chapters, although originally separated by inter- 
vals of a month, and sometimes by a longer period, it is believed will be 
found to lose none of their interest from being presented in consecutive or- 
der. The great variety of style and theme by wliich they are character- 
ized will save them from any charge of monotony. As many of the author's 
best poems were introduced into this series of prose papers, I have not 
thought it advisable to separate them from their original connection. In 
one word, I have made the best arrangement of the materials I possessed 
which I could, with the leisure left me from the cares of a never-ending 
gtill-beginuing literary avocation ; and I leave the result with the public, 
anxious mainly to be acquitted of doing injustice to one whose ear is ' deaf 
forever to the voice of praise,' but whose memory I would fain hope his 
country will not ' willingly let die.' 

Lewis Gatlord Ciare» 

New York, April, 1844. 

• Obituary in the Episcopal ' Banner of the Church.' 



OLLAPODIAIA. 



THE 



LITERARY REMAINS, 

ETC., ETC. 



OLLAPODIANA. 



NUMBER ONE. 



Good Reader, let us have a talk together. Sit you down 
with benevolent optics, and a kindly heart, and I doubt not that 
we shall pass an hour right pleasantly, one with another. Pleas- 
antly, in part, but in part it may be, sadly ; for you know it is 
with conversation, as with life ; it taketh various colors, and is 
changing evermore. So we will expect these changes, and meet 
them as they come. Sometimes we shall be in the cheerful vein, 
and at others, in that suhju?ic(.ive mood which conquers the jest on 
the lip, and holds Humor in bonds. But for * gude or ill,' I 
shall desire you to sit with me. In the voices of Mirth, there 
may be excitement, but in the tones of Mourning there is conso- 
lation. 

So I think, dear reader, as I write this last sentence, and tell 
you melancholy tidings. Charles Lamb is dead ! Yes, the 
mild, the gentle Lamb, is gathered at last, pure as the innocent, 
simple object that syllables his name, into the fold of God!* 
Perfect Creator of rich conceits — charming Architect of Periods, 
whose delicate aroma, like balm from Gilead, yet loiters around 
me ! — ' how shall I mourn thee V Reader, I hope you knew 
him, in that fond acquaintance which Authorship establishes be- 
tween a writer and his admirers. What an Essayist was he ! 
How shrewd in observation — how discriminative of the burlesque 
— how quaint, yet melodious in diction — in expression, how 
varied ! Who ever rose from hLs pages, without brighter thoughts 

* Charles Lamb, the author of ' Elia,' and one of the sweetest and most 
graphic writers of the present era, died in London in December. 



20 OLLAPODIANA. 

and softer feelings ? If any one, let him distrust his heart, and 
acquire new perceptions ; for in my sense, 't is better he should 
have no perceptions, than be in the possession of qualities that 
can not enable him to discern the merits of Lamb ; the contem- 
plative graduate of ' Christ's,' at Oxford, who could fling the lus- 
tre of his serene and goodly mind over every object ; who trailed 
the flowery vines of Poetry along the formal walks of Prose, 
until the scene brightened like a garden to the vision, and the 
air was redolent of celestial odors ! When will his place be filled 
again ? What hand may renew the leaves of ' Elia,' fresher and 
greener than those of Spring ? What dainty finger will trace 
that fair charactery of life, on foolscap or vellum more ? Alas, 
dear reader, I fear me, none. How fine a scholar, too, was he ! 
None of your plodding quoters of Greek and Latin, with senten- 
ces longer than the longest Alexandrine, and a style rougher than 
the wave by Charybdis ; but clear as the sky of May, and smooth 
as the susurrations of a stream in Eden. O gentle Lamb ! My 
heart could well indite, were my harp strung deftly for so sad a 
theme, a flood of mournful eulogy at thy departure. What could 
reconcile me to the truth that thou art indeed no more, but the 
sublime and most comfortable assurance, that what is loss to 
those who love thy memory, is but immortal gain to thee ! 

Lamb excelled as a writer, (though it was not his profession,) 
better than nine in ten, because he made the best sources of the 
language his study and his enjoyment. He walked with the god- 
like spirits of old English literature, like a compeer among his 
fellows ; he sat him down beneath the royal and purple shadows 
of their mighty mantles, and ate of the manna which descended 
around. How numerous and hov/ worthy were his intellectual 
companions ! Shakspeare was his bosom friend ; and with Chau- 
cer, Sidney, Warwick, Spenser, Overbury, Brown, and Walton, 
he ' strayed among the fields, hearing as it were the voice of 
God.' 

Yet Lamb had his carping critics, and mayhap his delicious 
sentences were often caviare to the million. But they will live 
and be cherished, when we are no more. Every age to come 
will possess a fitting audience, but 7iot a few, that shall wear him 
pre-eminent in their approval, and venerate his name. 

I will not consent to speak of the degenerated taste of modern 
times, until the comments on Shakspeare, the passages of Elia, 
or the pure nature of Elizabeth Woodville shall be forgotten ; 
and then, I will lament more in sorrow than in anger. I shall 
begin then to think, that the well of English undefiled has become 
jjolhited into a polyglott cistern ; that its freshness has departed ; 



O L L A F O D I A N A. 21 

and that, for the spirits who love it, it will well no more, except 
from those rare and secluded fountains, the Elder Libraries, 
tasted but seldom, and heard of by few. 

Charles Lamb had no common mind. It was exquisitely- 
gentle, but its simple deUneations were ever true to life, and 
therefore strong. His pen was imbued with the humor of a 
Cruikshank, yet he was no caricaturist, and never distorted. 
Even amidst the cold and calculating details of the India House, 
his fancy was ever exuberant : yet he never outraged probability 
in the pursuit of his bent ; he travelled not out of his path for 
humor : it dropped like running water from his pen. In happy 
words, and forms of speech, he was lord of the ascendant. I do 
confess myself his warm admirer ; and I deplore his exit, not as 
one who grieves without hope : for though he is lost to lands be- 
low the sun, he has proceeded to set up his everlasting rest in a 
better country, where the day does not darken, and Death hangs 
no cloud. In all things a lover of purity, he has gone at last, 
full of years and ripe in wisdom, where all is pure — among the 
troops of shining ones, in the heavenly Jerusalem. 



Talking of Jerusalem, reminds me — odd coincidence ! — 
of Rapelje's Narrative. That handsome volume, from the pen 
of a fellow townsman, contains many an instructive and pleasant 
page. But it is the misfortune of the traveller, I think, that he 
has been too negligent in his records. When he sojourns in 
France or Italy, we are sure that what he says is the truth, even 
to the purchase of a night-cap ; but when he quotes the language, 
we perceive at once, that he gathers his orthography from his 
ear. He speaks for example, of the Save (Sevres) China Manu- 
factory near Paris. Now, ' Save China,' is very well, as an ad- 
monitory phrase of household oeconomy ; but in any other sense, 
especially when used as a proper name, it is at least radically 
wrong, in everything but sound. In Rome, our author lodged 
in Strada-street. He may have done so : but I guess he mis- 
took the name. Strada is street in Italian, they tell me, as also 
is via ; and I was forcibly reminded by this presumptive error, 
of the remark made by an American sailor, in a letter addressed 
to a friend, from Paris, during the famous trois jours, wherein he 
describes a man whom he ' seen, with skase the valey of a rag on 
his back, running down Rue-street, and yelling ' Vivy la ShirtP '* 
The sound of a word, more especially in a foreign lingo, is a 
most delusive criterion of its orthographical construction. The 

* Vive la cliarte^ 



22 OLLAPODIANA. 

unfortunate woman in Humphrey Clinker, made a sad verbal 
faux pas in her own tongue, in the description of a night passed 
in vexing and grieving, when she wrote that she had been 'a- 
mxe7i and griffin all along the corse of the night.' 

To return. It is in the East that our ancient townsman sees 
with a clearer eye, and writes with simplicity and taste. His 
sketch of Jerusalem is distinct and vivid. Strange, mysterious 
city ! What a hold it hath upon every imagination ! How 
linked in, is it, with recollections of the times of youth ; with 
lessons from the Scriptures, delivered by the priest of our earliest 
days, from the sweet Olive mount of childhood ! Straightway 
as we read of that Metropolis of Faith, we go back on the post- 
ing wings of Reminiscence, to the green fields and fresh waters 
of serener years. We hear the chimes of Sabbath bells, the 
voices of the choir, and the pealing of that delicious organ, whose 
diapason was rapture, whose triumphant harmony kindled the 
soul. Associations of Bethlehem and merry Christmas mingle 
together ; and the babe in the manger is contrasted with the 
green-wreathed churches and blessings of Home. A hallowed 
word, indeed, is Jerusalem. The. great temple of Solomon, the 
gate that looked toward Damascus, the Via Dolorosa, along 
which our Saviour walked, to suffer a guiltless death — these, 
with a thousand other scenes of interest, arise to the mind at the 
mere mention of that devoted city, from whose mountain-girt cir- 
cumference were once rejected the brooding wings of the Al- 
mighty. How many pilgrims have gone there; how many have 
died there, in the ' entering in of the ways ;' in the billows of 
Jordan ! How many crusaders, battling for the cross of their 
order ; franklins, deserting the oaken halls of their far eastern 
castles ; fair penitents, distrusting themselves and relying on God ; 
palmers, with ' sandal-shoon and scallop-shell !' 

Good reader, in your black letter researches, if haply you 
have made them, did you ever meet with that right venerable 
tome, ' The Informacion for Pylgrymes unto y^ holy land, that 
is to wyte, to Rome, and to Jherusaleme V A pleasing ' 4to.' 
it is ; and was ' emprynted at Londone, in the Flete-strete, at the 
signe of y*^ sonne, by Wynkyne de Worde, in the yere of God, 
m cccc and xxiiij.' In those days, Europe used to pour her 
yearly thousands into the lap of Palestine. How differently peo- 
ple travelled then, from the modern tourist, in the era of Rapelje ! 
The author of the ' Informacion' went from Venice. With 
seemly modesty, his departure is thus set down : ' In the seven 
and twenty day of the moneth June, there passed fro Venyse, 
under sayle out of the haven of Venyse, at the sonne goinge 



OLLAPODIANA. 23 

down, certayne pilgrymes toward Jherusaleme, in a shyppe of a 
merchant of Venyse, y'called lohn Moreson. The patrone of 
the same shyppe was y'called Luke mantell. To the nombre of 
Ix. and syxe pylgrimes : every man payinge, some more some 
lesse, as they might accorde with the patrone.' There were no 
packet-cabins then, with fine wines and fixed prices ! Every 
tourist was obliged to provision himself. The ' informacion' on 
this point, and the advice, must have been very serviceable to 
those who follow the author. He says : ' Hyre you a cage for 
halfe a dozene hennes or chekyns to have with you in the shyppe 
or galey. For ye shal have neede of hem, manie times. And 
buy you halfe a bushell of mele sede at Venyse for them. Also 
take a barrel with you for a sege for your chambre in the shyppe ; 
it is ful necessary if ye were seke, that you come not into the 
ayre. Also whan you comen to haven townes, yf she shall tarry 
there three days, go by times to lande ; for then ye may have 
lodginge before another : it wyl be take up anone. And when 
you come to dyuers havens, beware of fruytes that ye ete none 
for nothynge ; for they be not accordinge to our complexion, and 
they gendre a bloudie fluxe. And ylf any englishmanne catch 
that there sekenesse, it is a greate mervayle but and he dye 
thereof.' 

' The mountains stand yet round about Jerusalem ;' and amid 
the ravages of years and the visits of pilgrims, from Sir John 
Maunderville to Chateaubriand and Rapelje, the city has kept 
her Great Wonders still. For ages, her objects of holy curiosity 
have not essentially changed. ' These,' says our author, ' ben 
the pylgrimages within the cytee of Iherusaleme. The fyrst is 
before the temple of y^ sepulchre dore. There is a four-square 
stone, whyte, whereupon Chryste rested hym with his crosse 
whan hee went toward the mount of Calvarie, where is indul- 
gence vii yeeres and vii lentes. Also the howse of the ryche 
man which denyed Lazare y^ crommes of breed.' How htde 
mutation has been made by time, in these grand characteristics 
of Jerusalem ! Yet since this pilgrimage was written, what 
changes have occurred among the nations of the earth ! The 
cities of America have arisen, like exhalations, from the wilder- 
ness : revolution has followed revolution : rivers of blood, and 
' hecatombs of men,' have testified the march of Death ; yet lonely, 
simple Jerusalem, afar in the East, surrounded by desperate 
hordes and gloomy plains, with none but moral attractions, yet 
lingers in her desolation. There the Roman, the Armenian, and 
the Greek Catholics, fight bloody battles on the sacred mount of 



24 OLLAPODIANA. 

Calvary, over the multiplied holes of the cross,* and lift up the 
voice of riot and slaughter, even in the sepulchre of Christ. 

There was a kind-heartedness among those ancient pylgrimes, 
which is not to be found in our selfish days. If they encounter- 
ed any unpleasant adventures, and they were avoidable, they 
would instruct others how to shun them. In the matter of diet, 
they used to be particularly minute ; and I am strongly inclined 
to think, that those old cosmopolites used to be right good livers. 
They seemed to have an innate hankering after 'creature com- 
forts;' and whatever they found, at any haven, that was good, 
they speedily mentioned the same in their books, for the especial 
benefit of those who should come after, as a kind of advertisement. 



By the way, while discoursing of advertisements, I think I may 
say that they form one of the strong characteristics of our enter- 
prising people. Look into the newspapers ; how they teem with 
these tidings of life ! I love to look them over. What a vast 
amount of interests they represent — how many hopes and fears ! 
From ' Tin plates and spelter,' to ' A Wife Wanted,' they are 
pleasing to read : and I am glad, when I see an avis that I have 
watched for some time daily, at last disappear. It is a sign that 
the author has had his wish accomplished ; has sold his com- 
modities, or found what he sought. 

There is just about the same difference between the orthogra- 
phy and grace of city and country advertisements, that there is 
between the manners of town and country people. Many of the 
rural merchants expose their wares in poetry ; they sell muslins 
or groceries, by long metre, and chant the praises of wooden 
bowls and codfish, on the murmuring lyre. Methinks it should 
go hard with customers, if such harmonious notifications do not 
usually take good effect for their authors. Legal advertisements, 
by humble functionaries, have not this privilege. They must be 
confined to the prose — though not to the letter — of law; for im- 
agination sometimes gambols through them, in a most wanton 
quest of new combinations of letters. In the course of my re- 
searches, I have possessed myself of sundry notices in the adver- 
tising and business line, two or three of which I subjoin. That 

• The holes of the three crosses on which our Saviour and the two thieves were 
crucified, have increased to between one and two dozen. Each of the divided 
threes are shown as the true ones. During some of the holy festivals, as we 
learn from modern travellers, the contests of the different parties claiming the 
true holes of those trees of death, are sanguinary and ferocious in the extreme. 
Several combatants have died in these bitter broils on the very spot where a Gk)D 
expired, to give peace to men. 



OLLAPODIANA. 26 

which immediately followeth, was not long since promulgated in 
a sister State. It is an 

' ADWERTISEMENT. 

' To be sold by public vandue, upon Saderdey the 23th day of November 

next, at the house of Eva T n, wedo deseesct in Newmanstown, all 

sutch personabel property of the said wedo in above menchent to wit — one 
good milcks cow and hey by the hundred 2 ten pleet stoves with pips one 
weel barow one close covert and kitchien tresser tebells and 3 cheers, tups 
and barrils one lar^ cauper kittil and iron potts 3 beds and bedstets 3 cheests 
and a large quantate of flax and linnen stuff and all kinds of other hous and 
kitchein furniturs to tichues to menchen the vandue to begin at 10 of the 
clock of the forenon. Resonabel greted will be give and the conddition 
maid noeu on the day of sail by S. B , Administrator.' 

There is no question at all, that the officer who penned the 
foregoing instrument felt the full force of his station when he com- 
mitted it to paper. He luxuriated in the mighty authority re- 
posed in him by the law ; and looked forward, no doubt, with 
sublime anticipations to the time when he should expose to the 
highest bidder ' the parsonabel property of the wedo deseesct,' 
and receive his perquisites therefor. He had no notion, I will be 
sworn, that he was writing himself down an Ass, as well as an 
Administrator. The effusions of such a linguist are exceedingly 
edifying to read. They remind me of a noted personage in one 
of our large cities, who has amassed a splendid fortune, by the 
manufacture of certain medicines of doubtful utility. Having 
neglected his education, and being often thrown into society above 
his sphere, he is as often the butt of many polished persons, who 
love to bore him with spurious learning, and who frequently re- 
sort to the magnificent mansion where he dwells in dismal and 
uncongenial gentihty. ' Sir,' said one of these wags to him not 
long ago, 'your medicinal discoveries are invaluable — immortal: 
they stamp you as the benefactor of your race ; and it will yet be 
said of you, as Homer said of Oliver Cromwell : ' Frigidi zoni, 
hoc belloni, lajisus lingucc .'' ' 

' No doubt of it !' said the flattered individual ; ' and I thank 
you for the compliment. Yet still for all, notwithstanding what 
you say, my honors is very small, and my enemies is very nu- 
merous : numerouser, a great sight, than they was when I wa'nt 
so well for to do. It was only the other day, that I got a letter, 
threatening egregiously for to burn down my consarn by means 
of a conflagration, if I didn't persist from uttering them medi- 
cines.' 

' Was the letter anonymous ?' 

* Not it ; and there, you see, I had the author on the hip. He 
dassent prescribe a syonymous communication to me, and so 



26 OLLAPODIANA. 

with unparalleled insurance he subscribed to his epistle the sig- 
nature of ' A. B. C It is well known, them letters is, to most 
people ; and I shall bring the author into a court, before the 
month is out, on a plea of sasJi' -a-rarrow /' 



Business, like Misfortune, makes one acquainted with strange 
matters. Here, for instance, is a bill, written by a very choice 
Italian, in language which he fain supposed to have been the 
quintessence of good Enghsh. It was tendered to an esteemed 
citizen, well known for his taste. Such a document is worth 
four dollars, without any additional value received. I offer the 
original, and a translation, which the author little thought it 
needed : 

Mr. Huon SqvvAR, 

To Jdlian G R, Dr. 

Busto Vaccenton, S2 00 

Busto Guispier, ---.-._ 2 00 

I think it would puzzle any one to ascertain the ' intent of this 
bill,' without much pondering and reflection. It would be laid 
on the table, in despair, by nine persons in ten. But when 
touched by the key of cogitation, its latent meanings flash forth 
to day. Here is the literal rendering : 

Mr. Hone, Esq. 

To Julian Gr r, Dr. 

Bust of Washington, $2 00 

Bust of Shakspeare, 2 00 

After such a document, I might best close. But I have one 
other notice from the interior, (the autographs of all are extant,) 
which I admire no less for its orthography, than for its grammar 
and punctuation : 

' NOTICE 

' Of the supscriber hoses wos miseu august the 15 1834 Lost of a span 
of hoses straid or stole out of the conions at liverpool a small black mayor 
switch tale nine yeres old a small bay maire too white feet behine and a short 
taile and a bout eight teen yeres old five dolars reward on them the oner of 
them hoses lives in townd of clay. D. R d.' 

Farther than these, nothing need be said. They are exhibi- 
tions of business talent, much to be applauded, but which, at the 
same time, might be materially enhanced by the benefits of edu- 
cation. Howbeit, the schoolmaster is abroad : and the rising 
generation will embrace few who cannot understand the falsity of 
the dolt's premises in Shakspeare, who contends that ' reading 
and writing come by nature.' 



OLLAPODIANA. 27 



NUMBER TWO. 

Jllay, 1835. 

Well, Spring is coming at last, witli smiles such as she used 
to wear in my childhood, when she stepped over the glowing 
mountains, with light and song in her train. The feelings of 
better years are kindling within me, as I look from my window 
over the blossoming gardens of the city, regale my nostrils with 
the inhalation of the air from fresh waters, and taste the fragrance 
which sweeps over the town from the flowering trees in yonder 
' fashionable square.' If there is any positive enjoyment on 
earth, one gets an inkling of it, on a spring day, when his heart 
is not worn, and ' his bosom is young.' It is a blessed time ; 
and he who feels it has a right to say so, even at the expense of 
being called a proser. I love to sit, as I do now, by my case- 
ment, with the gale melting all over my forehead, (like an invisi- 
ble touch of benediction from some spirit-hand,) and mark the 
rosy clouds move along the west, as the hum of the city dies upon 
the ear, and the aerial currents of evening are taking their course 
over the vast inland from the sea. I feel, at such moments, that 
I have an indestructible soul ; that the God whose fingers lifted 
the mountains to their places, and set the sun in heaven, likewise 
lights the human spirit from the exhaustless fountain of His pow- 
er. I muse upon the littleness of man, and the greatness of his 
Creator, until the thought exalts my contemplations aloft, and I 
am lost in wonder. 

There is nothing so graceful as a cloud. It is the richest thing 
in nature, except a wave in its dissolution. How beautifully its 
painted sides flaunt along the west ! If you would see clouds, 
you must see them i7i the West. I have watched those that were 
engendered by the sprays of Niagara, and the winds of Ontario, 
floating eastwardly from the Occident, until every fold was bapti- 
zed in molten ruby, amber, and vermillion ; and as the vast cur- 
tain rolled upward above the mountains, leaving only a few thin 
bars of crimson across a sky of the tenderest violet, I have re- 
peated those beautiful lines of Gliick : 

Methinks it were no pain to die, 
On such an eve, when such a sky 

O'ercanopies the West; 
To ^aze my fill on yon calm deep, 
And like an infant, sink to sleep 

On earth, my mother's breasts 



28 OLLAPODIANA. 

There's peace and welcome in yon sea 
Of endless blue tranquility — 

Those clouds are living things ; 
I trace their veins of liquid gold, 
I see them solemnly unfold 

Their soft and fleecy wings. 

Clouds are like flowers, in their fading and passing away. 
We lose them with regret. Thoughts of our last hour come 
upon us, as we watch them die, and we almost wish to die with 
them : to say 

Come now, oh. Death ! thy freezing kiss 

Emancipates ; the rest is bliss — 
I would I were away! 

I am led, in looking at clouds, to think of the past, and the 
mysterious awe with which they were regarded in the olden time. 
In the days of Tacitus, when the Roman armies approached a 
town to besiege it, and the shadows of clouds lay upon it, they 
would postpone their warfare until the sun-light was there. I 
think of those old ballads, where desolate ladies are represented 
in their castles, watching the clouds as they sailed up the sky 
from France into England, envying their elevation and scope of 
view, and building a thousand dreams, as fantastic as they. 



Mentioning the past, causes me to revert to Charles Lamb. 
In a former number I spoke warmly in his praise, but I gave no 
taste of his quality. From the past, he cannot be dissociated. 
It was a realm in which he lived. There grew the vines and fig 
trees under which he sate him down, not in ' sullenness and 
gloom,' but with the hght of an exuberant fancy ever kindling at 
his heart. Believine: that he was the writer on whom the mantle 
of tShakspeare did the most manifestly descend, I am bound to 
' give a reason for the faith that is in me.' This I shall do, by 
quoting a few passages from his works. John Woodvil, a trage- 
dy from his pen, affords a copious supply of Shaksperian thought, 
and fully justifies the remark of Hunt, that ' Lamb, and he alone, 
was worthy to have heard, by the lips of the Bard of Avon, the 
recital of a scene in any one of his immortal plays, hot from the 
brain.' I must of course be brief in my quotations ; but a few 
will suffice. John Woodvil is beloved by Margaret Woodvil, 
an orphan ward of his father, Sir Walter. He becomes cold 
and distant to her, and she deserts Woodvil Hall, after addres- 
sing him a kind, womanly letter. The following are his reflec- 
tions on its perusal : 

Gone ! gone, my girl ? So hasty, Margaret, 
And never a kiss at parting ? Shallow loves, 



OLLAPODIANA. j89 

And likings of a ten-day's growth, use courtesies, 

And show red eyes at parting. Wlio bids ' farewell' 

In the same tone he cries 'God speed you, sir?' 

Or tells of joyful victories at sea, 

Where he hath ventures, does not rather muffle 

His organs to emit a leaden sound. 

To suit the melancholy dull ' farewell' 

Which they in Heaven not use ? 

So peevish, Margaret! 

But 'tis the common error of your sex. 

When our idolatry slackens or grows less, 

(As who of woman born, can keep his faculty 

Forever strained to the pitch ? or can at pleasure, 

Make it renewable, as some appetites are, 

As namely, hunger, thirst?) this being the case. 

They tax us with neglect, and love grown cold, 

Coin plainings of the perfidy of men, 

Which into maxims pass, and apophthegms, 

To be retailed in ballads. 

By the way, the word apophthegm reminds me of the numer- 
ous sayings current in this country, that are utterly unsusceptible 
of meaning or explanation. Thus, when a person is eccentric, 
he is pronounced ' as odd as Dick's hat band.' The origin of 
this native apophthegm is buried in obscurity. In vain does 
curiosity inquire who was the mysterious Richard, with taste 
tmique, and hat-band odd ? Was it Richard the III. ? or Coeur 
de Lion ? Probably not the former. The only queer things 
about that monarch, were his misshapen back, and his knee-band ; 
an article which his proud representatives of the stage wear only 
on one leg, a custom certainly odd, because, according to the 
antique rule, ' One is odd, and two are even.' Most men have 
but one hat-band. It is considered sufficient — and no man has 
two : if he had, it would be odd indeed. A mass of reasoning 
on this subject presses itself at present upon my mind ; but I pass 
to other sayings. When one is good humored, it is apt to be 
remarked that ' He is as smiling as a basket of chips.' Now 
reader, is there anything so very humorous in a basket of chips ? 
Does it wear a smile '? I never could perceive that it did. A 
basket of this sort is as much devoid of expression, as the whites 
of Job's eggs were of taste. I have gathered many a basket full 
of chips in the country, for the gay mid-winter's fire ; but really 
they never smiled. There is no lineament of pleasure in a basket 
thus replenished. The contents lend a glow to the farmer's par- 
lor, and that is their onl}^ smile ; a compulsory brightness, which 
consumes them in its light, like ' a cheerful look from a breaking 
heart.' I take this to be sound logic, but have not, as yet, availed 
myself of any archaeological commentaries on the subject. 



30 OLLAPODIANA. 

When an individual, also, is in a state of extreme inebriety, it is 
observed of him, that ' He is as blue as a razor.' Now under 
favor and correction, 1 would express my belief that a razor hath 
not that cerulean hue spoken of ' i' the adage.' It is of a bright 
and silvery aspect, and the sheen thereof is entirely unlike the 
sky, or any other azure element or tint whatever. How the say- 
ing became extant, is beyond the lore of the antiquary. I have 
consulted several grave old gentlemen on the subject, and they 
all tell me that the saying is only valuable from its exceeding 
longevity. They have heard it, they say, from the lips of their 
great grandfathers, but comprehend not its fitness or sense. Age 
is its protection, and it continues to be received as a good phrase, 
merely because the memory of man runneth not to the contrary 
of its acceptance. 

But to return to Lamb. In a dialogue in Sher^vood Forest, 
between Margaret Woodvil, and Simon the brother of John, the 
following beautiful passage occurs : 

Margaret. What sports do you use i' the forest ? 

Simon. Not many ; so7iie few ; as thus : 
To see the sun to bed, and to arise, 
Like some hot amourist, with glowing eyes. 
Bursting the lazy bonds of sleep that bound him, 
With all his fires and travelling glories round him. 
Sometimes, the moon on soft night clouds to rest, 
Like Beauty, nestling in a young man's breast, 
And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep 
Admiring silence while those lovers sleep ; 
Sometimes, outstretcht in very idleness, 
Naught doing, saying little, thinking less, 
To view the leaves, their dancers upon air, 
Go eddying round : and small birds, how they fare, 
When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn, 
Filcht from the careless Almathea's horn. 

How completely is the subjoined colloquy drenched with the 
spirit of Shakspeare : 

Lovel. I marvel that the poets, who of all men, methinks, should possess 
the hottest livers, and most empyreal fancies, should afi'ect to see such 
virtues in cold water. 

John Woodvil. Because your poet hath an internal wine richer than lip- 
para or canaries, yet uncrushed from any grapes of earth, unpressed in 
mortal wine-])resses. 

Lovel. What may be the name of this wine? 

John. It hath as many names as qualities. It is denominated indiffer- 
ently, wit, conceit, invention, inspiration ; but its most royal and comprehensive 
name is fancy. 

Lovel. And where keeps he this sovereign liquor ? 

John. Its cellars are in the brain, whence your true poet deriveth intox- 
ication at will ; while his animal spirits, catching a pride from the quality 



OLLAPODIANA. 31 

and neighborhood of their noble relative, the brain, refuse to be sustained 
by wines and fermentations of earth. 

Equally Shaksperian is the following/rt?«6'// portrait of an honest, 

confidential friend : 

This Lovel here's of a tough honesty, 

Would put the rack to the proof. He is not of that sort 

Which haunt my house, snorting the liquors, 

And when their wisdoms are afloat with wine, 

Spend vows as fast as vapors, which go oft'. 

Even with the fumes, their fathers. He is one. 

Whose sober morning actions 

Shame not his o'er night's jjromises ; 

Why this is he, whom the dark-wisdomed Fate 

Might trust her counsels of predestination with. 

And the world be no loser. 

No one, it seems to me, of all the race of modern writers, has 
been so completely successful as Lamb, in the power of imbuing 
a composition with the true style and spirit of ancient English. 
Upon his ear alone, would seem to have melted the sweet and 
majestic harmonies of the olden time ; and, from a skill acquired 
by familiarity with that golden age of his native tongue, he touched 
his pen, to awaken in every reader a glow of enthusiasm. 

Talking of enthusiasm, leads me to say, that of all places 
wherein one can catch a glow of sacred transport, commend me 
to a Methodist meeting-house. I am no bigoted religionist. I 
have a feehng of deference and respect for every sect that wor- 
ships God ; and about none particularly, have I either prejudice 
or predilection. But I must allow that in no convocations, save 
those of that church, did I ever hear so much to move my sensi- 
bility ; to quicken, as by a sudden shock, the pulses of the heart, 
and to rouse the affections by a rapid and irresistible pathos. 
Often, from pure volition, do I wander away from the more flash- 
ing streets of the metropolis, into some of those quiet haunts 
whose retirement seems to denote the absence of society and the 
world. I enter, the humble porch, and with a feeling of reveren- 
tial simplicity, I sit me down. The pulpit is occupied by two 
or three speakers. One is engaged in exhortation. With justi- 
fiable tact, he has been selected as the first, in order to give him 
' fair play,' as he is evidently the weakest of the clerical trio. I 
perceive in him nothing extraordinary. He doles forth a sermon, 
full of common-places, and 



' in that nasal twang 

Heard in conventicles:' 

but his brevity is studied, and the clerical foil takes his seat, 
while the brighter gem, whose eloquence he has set off in antici- 



32 OLLAPODIANA. 

pation, arises. He is young, and handsome. The disposition 
of his dress and contour betokens the presence of one who is 
desirous, primarily, of impressing his hearers ' by that first appeal 
which is to the eye ;' and secondly, to inspire them with the elo- 
quent fires that are slumbering in his brain and bosom. At first, 
his voice is low and indistinct ; anon, it aspires into a melliffluous 
cadence, until every heart is moved, and every lip tremulous 
with a sigh. Such an one I heard, not many months ago. He 
commenced with the text, ' I have been young, and now I am 
old ; yet have I never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed 
begging bread.' In his pictures of youth and age, and of the 
sole consolation, ' the one thing needful,' which should sustain 
both, he broke forth into the following sublime emblem : 

' My friends, as I look down from this advantageous eminence, 
upon the different mortal ages that appear before me ; upon 
cheeks painted with the rosy bloom of childhood, and lips redo- 
lent with the fragrance of spring ; when I contrast them with the 
corrugated lineaments and snow-sprinkled temples of age, my 
mind labors with a fearful comparison. I contrast the full veins 
and fair moulded features of childhood with the thin and shrivel- 
led aspects of declining years ; and I liken them all to the scenes 
which we meet with on the broad ocean of existence. In our 
better days, we leave the pleasant land of youth in a fairy barque ; 
the sunshine laughs upon the pennon, and trembles on the sail ; 
the sweet winds refresh our nostrils from the flowery shore, the 
blue vistas delight our eyes, the waves dance in brightness beneath 
our keel ; the sky smiles above us, the sea around us, and the 
land behind us, as it recedes ; and before, a track of golden 
brightness seems to herald our way. Time wears on — and the 
shore fades to the view. The barque and its inmates are alone 
on the ocean. The sky becomes clouded ; the invisible winds 
sweep with a hollow murmur along the deep ; the sun sinks like 
a mass of blood over the waters, which rise and tumble in mad 
confusion through a wide radius of storm ; the clouds, like 
gloomy curtains, are lifting from afar. The sails are rent ; the 
tackle disparts ; broken cordage streams and whisdes to the tem- 
pest ; the waves burst like molten mountains upon the half sub- 
merged and shuddering deck ; masts are rent in splinters ; the 
seaman is washed from the wheel. Cries of terror and anguish 
mingle with the remorseless dash of billows, and the howling of 
thunder and storm. The foundered boat sinks as she launches ; 
the deck is breaking. God of mercy ! TVho shall appear for the 
rescue ? Where fold the arms that are mighty to save ? Men 
and brethren — aid is near at hand. Through the rifts of the tem- 



OLLAPODIANA. • 33 

pest, beaming over the tumultuous waters, moves a pavilion of 
golden light. The midnight is waning; gushes of radiance 
sprinkle the foam ; a towering form smiles on the eyes of the 
despairing voyagers, encircled with a halo of glory. It is the 
Saviour of Man — it is the Ark of the Covenant ! It moves on- 
ward ; the waves rush back on either hand ; and over a track 
of calm expanse, the Ark is borne. Who steps from its side, 
and walks over the deep, as if upon the land ? It is the great 
Captain of our Salvation — the Mighty to Save ? He rescues the 
drowning from death, the hopeless from gloom. He stills the 
fury of the tempest ; and for the spirit of mourning, he gives tlie 
song of rejoicing and the garments of praise. Ark of the Cove- 
nant ! roll this way ! We are sinking in the deep waters ; and 
there is none to deliver ! Let the prayer be offered, and it will 
save us all !' 

Such is a faint sketch of the exhortation I have mentioned. 
In illustrating this point, the preacher said : ' Let not this sketch 
be deemed the dream of a fanciful mind. We are the voyagers, 
ours is the danger, and God is the Power who guides the Ark of 
Deliverance. These things are not visible to the naked, mortal 
eye, but their truth is the same. The things which are seen are 
temporal ; from them depend those momentous things which are 
unseen and eternal. How shall I illustrate the boundless differ- 
ence between the glories of the spiritual and temporal world? 
Some years ago, I remember, I was in a town in a neighboring 
State when there chanced an eclipse of the sun. I had for- 
gotten the anticipated event, and was reading in my room, un- 
mindful of the pale and sickly twilight that had gradually stolen 
over my page. A friend came in, and said, * Brother, are you 
aware that the eclipse is now taking place V I answered no ; and 
joining him, I walked down into the long broad street. It was 
full of people ; and the houses of the town, on all sides, were 
covered with the population. I took a small fragment of smoked 
glass, and surveyed the sun. It was nearly obscured by the 
other sphere, and by the clouds which, clad in gloomy Hght, 
were sailing fitfully by. After a little while I retired to my apart- 
ment, but for nearly an hour was totally blind. Now, my be- 
loved friends, that mighty orb, even when, as at this present, it 
sails in unclouded majesty above us, throwing its floods of light 
upon the far-off mountain, the arid desert, the fertile valley, or 
the heaving main, that glorious orb is but a faint spark at the foot 
of the Omnipotent — a dimly-lighted lamp, feebly glimmering on 
the outer verge of that transcendent world, whose glories are un- 
seen and eternal.' 

3 



34 OLLAPODIANA. 

To appreciate bursts of pulpit eloquence like these, you must 
hear them. You must have partaken of the excitement which 
warms the speaker, and spreads like a sweet contagion, if I may 
so speak, among his auditory. You must see the faces of young 
and old lighted up with a solemn interest ; and when he goes on 
to depict the goodness of the Saviour, you should mark the tear- 
ful features beaming in loveliness from the galleries ; hear the sobs 
of irrepressible rapture which attest the animation of the believ- 
ing; and anon your own heart is so melted with enthusiasm, that 
when the rich, trembling tones of the congregation are blended in 
the hymn, you seem carried aloft on wings of extacy, by the in- 
fectious transport of the scene. I have listened to the ad captan- 
dum eloquence of many a ' popular' divine, without emotion, 
and heard, indifferently, the incontrovertible propositions of many 
a ' stately son of demonstration ;' but when I desire to be sub- 
dued and melted in simple feeling, I go to a Methodist meeting. 
Something humble and holy is there ; the distinctions of this life 
are lost in the contemplation of that which is to come ; the music 
rings in tender supplication at the door of my heart ; and I come 
away, feeling for days like a purer and a better man. There be 
many who visit such places for amusement ; to mimic the prayer 
of the righteous, and sneer at the stay of the comfortless and the 
aged ; but he who would thus insult his God, is worse than a 
reptHe. 

I HAVE heard many definitions of Puns. It has been gener- 
ally conceded that the worst are the best. The most far-fetched 
are certainly the most unexpected, and consequently the most 
humorous. What can be better in this way than Hood's des- 
cription of Ben. Battle, in the conflict ? 

'A cannon ball took off his legs 
And he laid down his arms :" 

Or that doleful announcement, after his death, when 

' They went and told the Sexton, 
And the Sexton toWd the bell !' 

Things like these make one laugh every time they are thought 
of. They are irresistible to the most ordinary apprehension. 
Looking over my dear familiar Lamb's works the other day, I 
encountered some comments on a pun, which, with the example 
offered, are so admirable, that I transcribe them entire. 

A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a 
pistol let off at the ear ; not a feather to tickle the intellect. It is 
an antic which does not stand upon manners, but comes bounding 



OLLAPODIANA. 35 

into the presence, and does not show the less comic for being 
dragged in sometimes by the head and shoulders. What though 
it limp a litde, or prove defective in one leg? All the better. 
A pun may easily be too curious and artificial. Who has not at 
one time or odier been at a party of professors, (himself perhaps, 
an old offender in that line,) where, after ringing a round of the 
most ingenious conceits, every man contributing his shot, and 
some there the most expert shooters of the day ; after making a 
poor word run the gauntlet till it is ready to drop ; after hunting 
and winding through all the possible ambages of similar sounds ; 
after squeezing, and hauling, and tugging at it, till the very milk 
of it will not yield a drop further, suddenly some obscure, un- 
thought-of fellow in a corner, who was never 'prentice to the 
trade, whom the company for very pity passed over, as we do by 
a known poor man when a money-subscription is going round, 
no one calling upon him for Ms quota ; has all at once come out 
with something so whimsical yet so pertinent ; so brazen in its 
pretensions, yet so impossible to be denied ; so exquisitely good, 
and so deplorably bad, at the same time, that it has proved a 
Robin Hood's shot ; anything ulterior to that is despaired of, and 
the party breaks up, unanimously voting it to be the very worst 
(that is, best) pun of the evening. This species of wit is the bet- 
ter for not being perfect in all its parts. What it gains in com- 
pleteness, it loses in naturalness. The more exactly it satisfies 
the critical, the less hold it has upon some other faculties. The 
puns which are most entertaining are those which will least bear 
an analysis. Of this kind is the following, recorded, with a sort 
of stigma, in one of Swift's Miscellanies : 

' An Oxford scholar, meeting a porter who was carrying a hare 
through the streets, accosts him wdth this extraordinary question : 
' Prithee, friend, is that your own Jiai-e, or a wigT 

' There is no excusing this, and no resisting it. A man might 
blur ten sides of paper in attempting a defence of it against a 
critic who should be laughter-proof. The quibble in itself is not 
considerable. It is only a new turn given by a little false pronun- 
ciation, to a very common, though not very courteous inquiry. 
Put by one gentleman to another at a dinner-party, it would have 
been vapid ; to the mistress of the house, it would have shown 
much less wit than rudeness. We must take in the totality of 
time, place, and person ; the pert look of the inquiring scholar, 
the desponding looks of the puzzled porter ; the one stopping at 
leisure, the other hurrying on with his burden ; the innocent 
though radier abrupt tendency of the first member of the question, 
with the utter and inextricable irrelevancv of the second ; the 



36 OLLAPODIANA. 

place — a public street, not favorable to frivolous investigations ; 
the affrontive quality of the primitive inquiry (the common ques- 
tion) invidiously transferred to the derivative (the new turn given 
to it) in the implied satire ; namely, that few of that tribe are ex- 
pected to eat of the good things which they carry, they being in 
most countries considered rather as the temporary trustees than 
owners of such dainties, which the fellow was beginning to under- 
stand ; but then the icig again comes in, and he can make nothing 
of it ; all put together constitute a picture. Hogarth could have 
made it intelligible on canvass.' 

There are some men who speak in puns. Philadelphians, 
since the time of Knickerbocker, have had the merit of being the 
most atrocious punsters in the union. But with the exception of 
a happy journalist or two, and a few jurists, they have the name 
only ; which, however, has attained such an altitude, that they 
sleep on their laurels. Perhaps it is well ; yet of all miscar- 
riages, an abortive pun is the worst. How many witlings have I 
seen bring forth one of those pseudo bon-mots, and baptize it 
with a grin, when it was the very quintessence of inanity ! Truly, 
they have their reward ; for they are often asked by their ac- 
quaintances, when they have finished, whether the time has come 
to laugh! 

I like a play upon words in other ways. Ben. Jonson made 
a right good hit, when he wagered that he could incorporate the 
choral words di, do, dum, into a melancholy couplet. Being 
challenged to do so, he adventured as thus : 

When Dido found that TEneas would not come, 
She wept in silence, and was Dido dumb.^ 

Chesterfield made it a rule, that in social chat, the visiter's 
good sayings should be reserved for the last, and that when he 
had uttered them, he should instantly take himself away. Be- 
lieving that I can not add a better thing than this versicle of 
Ben's, (built, no doubt, at some happy moment when ' his learned 
sock was on',) I follow the counsel. 



OLLAPODIANA. 37 



NUMBER THREE. 

June, 1835. 

Another month has gone by, and bless us, reader, here am 
I again, at the same casement of which I whilome made mention, 
brewing you another chapter of various topics, ' writen as they 
shoulde comen into my mynde.' ' The moneth June !' A right 
p'easant month it is — leafy, sunny, and sweet. The view from 
n ■ window has vastly improved since my last. The ' fashion- 
a! 'e square' is almost hidden by a cloud of splendid verdure ; 
and as I look upon the undulating and breeze-tossed mass, I 
think there are few things so fine as a huge wall of ' innumerous 
boughs,' clothed in the garniture of summer, and quivering in 
the beauty of morn — so sparkling, fresh, and rich to see ! 

The air that sweeps from squares and groves, is worth a for- 
tune. Let me breathe it in health, and I am happy. All truly 
excellent things are those which all can enjoy : the blessed sun, 
the air, the sight of sky and cloud, of hills and waters, these are 
for all. Munificent Creator ! What do not thy creatures owe 
thee ! I respire now in an atmosphere that would befit Hes- 
peria. The breeze is balm : 

' It hath come over gardens, and the flowers 
That kissed it are betrayed.' 

So long as I can relish these blessings, with such exhilarating en- 
joyment, I would love to live, and live to love ; I could cheer- 
fully pass the octogenarian in my decline. 

The midsummer weighs me down. It takes away my nerves, 
and resolves me into a woman. I grow weak and sentimental, 
and a kind of rascally melancholy comes upon my spirit. Such, 
at least, has been the case ; but I think I am yearly changing in 
that regard. When June comes, also, I am not so buoyant as 
aforetime. I can not tell the reason, unless it be that Hope loses 
lustre from her wings in every solstice ; while Reality points with 
his iron finger at the index of time, and tells me I am becoming 
unmindful of beauty and untinctured with song. Now and then 
I think this is true, especially of the brighter seasons : 

'Alas, my heart's darkness! I own it is summer, 
Yet, 'tis not the summer I once used to see ; 
Then I had welcomes for every new comer — 
Now strangely the summer seems altered to me.' 

So of Other matters. I used to rejoice in watching the splendid 
coaches which flashed by my window, with their luxurious 



38 OLLAPODIANA. 

springs, and servants in livery, swinging with golden bands from 
their stands behind ; and I took much delight in surveying the 
fair freight within ; now they roll by unnoticed. I am in a spirit 
land, mainly ; a land of dreams and reveries — the realm and do- 
minion of ' Drowsy head.' 

Talking of drowsiness, makes me think of a feeling which 
comes over the mind of a man, after reading a published article 
from his pen, full of errors. He sees fine periods and pet sen- 
tences inhumanly butchered ; he turns with discontent from the 
journal to which they were sent ; ' look on't again he dares not ;* 
he perspires with rage ; and, fretting himself drowsy, feels ready 
to say with Otway, ' Oh for a long, long sleep, and so forget it !* 
Genius of Faust ! what abominations are committed in thy name I 
Hereby hangs a tale. 

The other day, a little man called to see me, as the author of 
' Ollapodiana.' He was of lowly stature, bent in the back, knock- 
kneed, and had hair on his head of a most grievous sorrel hue. 
His ungainly too-long coat was of blackish fustian, his jerkin of 
snufiy buff, and his pantaloons of blue cotton, ' i' the autumn of 
their life.' He had found me out, he said, by my style, and had 
brought a sketch which he desired I would smuggle into the 
Knickerbocker, as he feared its acceptance otherwise. So I 
stand godfather for his bantling. It has, I should think, been 
hastily created, and its insertion here will crowd out several 
members and subsections of my own, but I fancy it will do. . I 
can sympathize with Smith ; yet he is used to reverses, being one 
of the identical persons who failed in receiving the prize offered 
by the ' Olympiad and Sunburst,' as mentioned recently in this 
Magazine. One thing plagued me. He was determined to read 
ithe whole thing aloud, so that I could ascertain exactly every 
word, and thus prevent mistakes when I surveyed the proof- 
sheets. 1 sat like a martyr, while he rose, and with a prelimin- 
ary flourish, 

' Drew from the deep Charybdis of his coat 
What seemed a handkerchief, and forthwith blew 
His vocal nose.' 

and then began : 

'THE VICTIM OF A PROOF-READER.' 

f^ — 

' ' ' Foul murder hath been done — lo ! here's tlie proof!' — Old Play.' 

* Oh ! for the good old times of Typography, when operatives 
in the art could render the ancients; when Caxton translated 'Y* 



OLLAPODIANA. 30 

Seyge of Troye' from the language of Greece ! Would that, 
in this latter age, when Champollion has deciphered the hiero- 
glyphics of Egypt; when the spirit of inquiry is every where 
abroad ; some one might be found, who could continue to shel- 
ter from typical aggression a writer for the press ! 

' I am the victim of a proof-reader. The blunders of others, 
and not my own, have placed me in a state of feeling akin to 
purgatory. Ever since I began to shave for a beard, I have been 
more or less afflicted with the cacoethes scribcndi, and I flatter 
myself that I have not always been unsuccessful in my writings. 
But my 'printed efforts have neither been honorable to my genius, 
nor grateful to my vanity ; ' on the contrary they have been quite 
the reverse.' I have had the sweetest poems turned into thrice- 
sodden stupidity ; sentences in prose, on which I doated in 
manuscript, have been perused in a deep perspiration, and with 
positive loathing, in print. All this has arisen from a conspiracy 
which seems to have been formed against me, by all the typo- 
graphical gentlemen of the country. It is true, I write what 
Mrs. Malaprop might call an ' ineligible hand ;' for to the pitiful 
minutiae of crossing th, and dotting I's, I never could descend. 
I have often given directions to publishers, that if a word was 
otherwise ' past finding out,' they should count the marks ; but 
the plan failed, as have indeed all my plans for correct habits of 
thought before the public. If this narrative shall prove to be 
correctly printed, it will be the first article from my pen that has 
ever met with such an honor, and I shall be proportionably 
pleased. 

' Like all other mortals, I am penetrable to the arrows of Cu- 
pid. My heart is not encased with the epidermis of a rhinoceros, 
nor the bull hide of Ajax ; consequently I am what they call in 
romances a susceptible person. When I was nineteen I fell in 
love, and as I found prose too tame a medium, too staid a 
drapery for my thoughts, what could I do, but express to my 
fair one my passion in song ? She was a beautiful creature, ' a 
delicious arrangement of flesh and blood ;' a country parson's 
daughter, with excellent tastes and accomplishments. She was 
fond of poetry, and so was I. This circumstance sent my fancy 
a wool-gathering, for tropes, figures, and emblems. Young 
ladies have a passionate admiration for genius, and I determined 
to show that I was not deficient in that particular ; that I belonged 
of right to those who merited the saying, ' Poeta nascitur nonjit^ 
During the spring of 18 — I was attacked with a perfect incon- 
tinence of rhyme. My ladye-love was always my theme. But 
of all my compositions, none satisfied me save the following, 



40 OLLAPODIANA. 

which I produced with 'great limcB labor, and studious care. I 
think poorly enough of it now : 

TO EMILY B 

'Dear Girl! an angel sure thou art — 

The muse of every spell 
Which brings one transport to my heart, 
And bids my bosom swell. 

'And oh! carnation on thy cheek 

Its richest lustre lends ; 
And thy blue eyes forever speak 
■ A welcome to thy friends. 

Alas I if fate should bid us part, 

Life would be naught with me; 
A load would rest upon my heart. 

Without a smile from thee. 

'Where shall I meet a leaf so fair 

In Nature's open page ? 
With thee the beauteous flower compare, 
And e'en my grief assuage? 

* Forgive, my love, this hasty lay, 

And let its numbers be 
Sweet monitors that day by day. 
Shall bid thee think of me!' 

* This production I sent to the village newspaper. I waited 
a long week, to see it appear. Finally, the important Wednes- 
day arrived. I hastened to the office, but the affair was not pub- 
lished. I glanced with a hurried eye over the damp sheet, and 
found a notice at last, commencing with three stars turned up 
and down. It read thus : 

« j^*^The tribute to Emily, by ' J. S.' is unavoidably postponed until our 
next, by a press of advertisements, for which we are thankful — since we do 
that kind of business, as likewise all sorts of job-work, on the most reason- 
able terms — blanks, cards, hand-bills, and other legal documents, being exe- 
cuted by us at the shortest notice. Not to digress, however, we would say 
to 'J. S.' let him cultivate his talent; he has tremendous powers, but he 
writes a bad hand. He should make his penmanship like his poetry — 
perfect.'' 

' I had the curiosity to look into the advertising columns to 
see what envious things of traffic had displaced my lines. 
There were but three advertisements, a sheriff's sale, a stray 
cow, and a wife eloped from bed and board. I read the sheriff's 
notice with that deep interest which these documents usually ex- 
cite. Tt discoursed of lands, messuages, and tenements, desig- 
nated ' by a line, beginning at the north west corner of Mr. Jen- 
kins' cow-house, running thence north seventy-five chains, four- 



OLLAPODIANA. 41 

« 

teen links, thence east twenty-nine chains eleven links, to a stake 
and stones' — and so on to the end of the chapter. 

' Yet the notice filled me with exceeding great delight. I sent 
it to Emily : I told her that ' J. S.' was myself, but begged her 
not to mention it to a third person. She kept her secret as 
women usually do. In three days it was all over town, that I 
had a piece, ' that I had made out of my head,' coming forth in 
the next week's newspaper, addressed to Emily BrinkerhofF. 

* Never did seven days roll more slowly round than the week's 
interval which followed the foregoing notice, in the publication 
of the ' Elucidator of Freedom, and Tocsin of the People.' 
When it did finally come out, I sent Emily an affectionate note, 
with a copy of the paper, assuring her that the poem contained 
my real sentiments. I determined not to read it myself until I 
visited her in the evening. By great self-denial I kept my re- 
solve, and when the young moon arose, bent my steps toward 
the mansion of my mistress. 

' She received me coldly. I was surprised and abashed. 
* What is the matter, Em.,' I tenderly inquired : ' did you get 
my billet-doux and the verses to-day V 

' ' Yes — they came safe.' 

' ' Well, how did you like them ?' 

* ' The note was kind and good, but the verses were foolish, 
ridiculous nonsense.' 

' I was thunderstruck. I asked to see the paper. Emily arose 
and handed it to me ; and sitting down by the vine-clad window, 
she patted her little foot angrily on the floor. 

' I opened the Elucidator and Tocsin, and read my poem. 
Solomon of Jerusalem ! what inhuman butchery — what idiotcy ! 
But I will give the effusion as it was printed, ' and shame the 
devil ;' 

'TO EMILY B . 



• Dear Girl ! an angel sour thou art — 
The mule of every spell ; 
That brays o'er trumpets to my heart, 
And bids my bosom swell. 

' And oh ! damation o'er thy cheek 

Its rudest blister bends ; 
And thy blear eyes forever speak 
A welcome to thy friends. 

' Alas ! if fate should bind us fast, 
Life would be rough with me ; 
A toad would rush upon my heart, 
Without a smile from thee. 



42 OLLAPODIANA. 

' Where could I meet a lamp so fair 

In Nature's open passage ? 
With thee the barbarous flower compare, 
And own my grief a saussage ? 

' Forgive, my bore, this nasty lay, 
And let its numbers be 
Sweet monitors, that drily dry, 

Shall bid thee think of me!' J. S. 

• When I had read this diabolical mass of stuff over, I flew 
into an uncontrollable rage. In the blindness of my chagrin, I 
depreciated the judgment of Miss Emily ; I thought everybody 
could see the errors, and detect them as readily as I did ; and I 
said to my young friend that she must have been very stupid or 
inattentive, not to see how the poem ought to read. This roused 
in her bosom, ' all the blood of all the Brinkerhofis.' She handed 
me my hat, and pointed significantly to the door. I went out at 
the aperture thus indicated, and have never darkened it since. 
Emily is now the wife of a Connecticut school-master, who 
blows the pitch-pipe and leads the choir on Sunday, in her fa- 
ther's church. 

' This was my first passion, and my last, except that into 
which I have been roused every time I have sent a piece to be 
published. Yet I still love to console my dreary bachelorship 
by writing, and seeing my thoughts in print ; but I despair of 
ever seeing them rightly uttered. Fate, in that regard, is against 
me, and probably always will be. , j^^^ Smith.' 



After a tragedy, the curtain falls to slow and mournful music. 
Should the leader of an orchestra on such an occasion strike up 
Yandee Doodle or Paddy Carey, the contrast would be absurd. 
I feel in something ^uch a predicament now. I have introduced 
a tragical or at least a melodramatical narration, and I should be 
unfeeling indeed to follow it up with other matters, which proba- 
bly would be of a cheerful nature. I leave the story of my visi- 
ter's sorrow and reverses, as a provocative to solemn reflection in 
the reader, upon the abuses of printing, and the mutability of 
types. 



OLLAPODIANA. 



46 



NUMBER FOUR. 

August, 1835. 

From one who loves to babble of green fields, and brooks of 
running crystal, it is natural to expect a rhapsody about the 
country. Listen then, reader, to me. 

I affect the country, with a most engrossing and strong attach- 
ment. It awakens my tenderest feelings and my sweetest asso- 
ciations. Delicious reveries descend upon my spirit, as I walk 
through the meadows and clover fields, when the earth is white 
with Summer, and glowing with beauty. To see the wide land- 
scape undulating around you ; to hear the cling-clang of the 
mower's whet-stone, as he sharpen's his scythe, while the heavy 
swaths are lying around ; to see the loaded wain rolling onward 
to the garner, with fragrant hay, or nodding wheat-sheaves, em- 
bodiments of Plenty — these sights are pleasant, reader : and you 
who reside in cities, where unwritten odors of a most questiona- 
ble salubrity assail your indignant nostril ; who breathe chim- 
ney-smoke and dust, and suffer the secret backbitings of numer- 
ous bugs, mostly of metropolitan origin — you, I say, can have 
no imagination of the delights of a country existence. Your hap- 
less ears are bored at morn with the supernatural shriek of the 
milk-man, or the amphibious voice of the unmusical clam-dealer, 
oyster-man, or sweep ; and you lie upon your bed, tossing in 
restless disquiet ; you snore maledictions, and think daggers, 
though you use none. 

But out of town — oh, it is perfect ! Your milk is fresh, your 
strawberries fresh, rich, and succulent. The first commodity has 
not been watered at the public pump, nor are the latter luxuries 
bruised and unclean. I must drop this topic, for my mouth be- 
ginneth to water; a complaint, no remedy being nigh, that is un- 
pleasant to the last degree. 

I affect the country, because my first impressions of this 
breathing world were formed amid its hallowed scenery. I was 
cradled among the hills ; blue mountains melted in the distance 
from my bed-room window ; broad fields, and woods, and rivers, 
shone between ; the huge rains made melody on the roof of 
Home for my unsophisticated ear, and I became steeped in the 
passionate love of nature. It has never left me. I rejoice as I 
call back those pleasant times, when in the casement of our sem- 
inary, I rested my telescope on my shut-up Virgil, and looked 
off among the far-off hills in the lap of which the edifice was 



44 OLLAPODIANA. 

navelled, and saw the pretty girls of the farm-houses, whitening 
their long pieces of brown tow-cloth, fresh from the loom ; pick- 
ing raspberries in the green hedges ; drawing cool water, in the 
swinging oaken-bucket, to make switchel withal, for the swains, 
as they came home for their forenoon lunch, or milking their 
balm-breathing cows, ' in the golden evening-tide !' Those were 
happy days ! and if I learned my Latin badly, and made blun- 
ders in recitation, I got many a leaf from the book of nature 
most deeply by heart. 

There is something exceedingly grateful in the country, when 
you can, as far as literature is concerned, enjoy the delectable 
urhs in rure ; when you can get books, and specially newspapers : 
for whatsoever may be said by man or woman, as touching Edi- 
tors, they are famous ministers to our pleasure. We love to 
peruse their sheets ; and even in times of political excitement, 
when a stranger to the country might be induced to believe that 
the greatest rascals in the republic were rival candidates for its 
highest honors ; when, among journalists, each one seems rempli 
de colere, and ready to pull every opponent by the individual 
nose ; even then, we love to read their writings. We like to see 
the cut, the keen retort, the hot rejoinder, and the sequent quip. 
There is excitement in them. 

Commend me to a newspaper. Cowper had never seen one 
of our big sheets, when he called such four-paged folios ' ma,jps 
of busy life.' They are more — they are life itself. Its ever- 
sounding and resistless voxpojpuU thunders through their columns, 
to cheer or to subdue, to elevate or to destroy. Let a scoundrel 
do a dirty action, and get his name and deed into the papers, and 
and thc?i go into the street — Broadway, for example — and you 
shall see his reception. Why does each passer-by curl his lip, 
and regard him with scorn ? Why is he shunned, as if a noisome 
pestilence breathed around him ? What makes every man ob- 
serve him with a contemptuous leer ? Because, they have seen 
the newspaper, and they know him. So, in a contrary degree, is 
it with honorable and gifted men. The news-prints keep their 
works and worth before the public eye ; and when themselves 
appear, they are the observed of all observers. Hats are lifted 
as they approach, and strangers to whom they are pointed out, 
gaze after them with reverence. Success to newspapers ! They 
are liable, it is true, to abuse — as what blessing is not ? — but 
they are noble benefits, nevertheless. What an endless variety 
of subjects, too, do they contain ! Now we are entertained with 
original dissertations on numerous important subjects ; then, to 
use the quaint old catalofjue of Burton, ' conje tydings of wed- 



OLLAPODIANA. 4d 

dings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, wars, fires, 
inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spec- 
trums, prodigies, shippe-wracks, piracies, sea-fights, lawsuits,' 
pleas, laws, proclamations, embassys, trophies, triumphs, revels, 
sportes, playes ; then again, as in a new-shifted scene, treasons, 
cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kindes, funerals, 
burials, new discoveries, expositions ; now comicall, then tragi- 
cal matters. To-day we hear of new offices created, to-morrow 
of great men deposed, and then again of fresh honors conferred ; 
one is let loose, another prisoned ; one purchaseth, a:nother 
breaketh ; he thrives, his neighbor turneth bankrupt ; now plenty, 
then again dearth and famine ; one runs, another rides, wrangles, 
laughs, weepes, and so forth. Thus we do daily hear such like, 
both public and private news.' 

I have an attachment to newspapers, because I deem them a 
kind of moral haUeaux de jplaisance, or rail-cars, mayhap, wherein 
you can embark before breakfast, or after dinner, and survey the 
world, and the kingdoms thereof. It is a cheap and right whole- 
some way of journeying ; and indeed, with the exception of a few 
national jaunts, is about the only mode I have ever employed iifor * I 
travelle not save in mappe and carde, in which my unconfined 
thoughts have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially 
delighted with the study of cosmogony.' INIy bias for newspapers 
is at least an honest one ; and I have been driven into it more 
perhaps from the worthlessness of the mass of re-published 
books, than from the intrinsic merit of my daily and and hebdom- 
inal visiters ; for the name of these aforesaid books is legion ; 
and most of them, if in sheets, would be fit only ' to put under 
pies, to lap spice in, and keep roast meat from burning.' 

Rural life seldom fails to accomplish one object ; it softens the 
heart. It awakens the affections and leads to contemplation. 
* God made the country, and Man made the town.' In the for- 
mer, there are no artificial wants, prejudices, or fashions — all is 
cordiality, comfort, and peace. We look abroad upon the solemn 
hills, the shining streams, and waving woodlands, and we feel 
that God is there! His hand placed the rock-ribbed mountain 
on its throne, and rolled around it its crown of misty glory. His 
breath fills the blue vault that swells above, until immensity, as 
it were, is visible ; and His smile is shadowed only in the sun- 
beams which traverse those abysses of mystery. How majestic 
is the coming of a summer storm ! We sit at the v/indow of 
some rural mansion, to which we have fled from the thick air and 
heat of the metropolis ; we see the far-off clouds arise like giant 
forms against the horizon, with spears of fire, and robes of pur- 



46 OLLAPODIANA. 

pie and gold ; then, as by some sudden alchemy, they melt into 
a mass of solid gloom, from whose bosom the lightning darts its 
vivid chain, while its source 

' Hangs o'er the solemn landscape, silent, dark, 
Frowning and terrible.' 

I have said that the country melts and subdues the heart. It 
is true. I have seen a Being, in the flush and glow of girlhood, 
who seemed to live and move in an atmosphere of lofty and pas- 
sionate excitement. I have seen thousands hang upon her ac- 
cents, as she moved before them, like the Tragic muse, her eye 
dilated and her features radiant with the light of genius. I have 
seen the bosoms of the young and beautiful swelling at her glance, 
and the tears of hundreds flowing at her bidding. Was there en- 
joyment then, in the mind of her who thus moved the hearts of 
others by the momentary tempest that awoke in her own, and 
tossed them on the ' lava waves and gusts of her own soul ? 
Alas, no ! It was the mingling of labor and art ; the fitful fever 
of the brain. But I have seen that One presiding at the board 
of Home, with the serenity of unutterable affection on her brow, 
and the radiance of happy thoughts in her eyes. The peace of 
the country had breathed upon her heart ; and the impulses that 
its scenes engender, had tranquilized her being. Could this be 
the same ? Secluded, yet most content, she had forgotten the 
liollow pageantries through which she had passed ; the noisy 
crowd ; the unbroken applause ; and then, the prejudices of 
altered or dishonest critics, and the gossip of the multitude. She 
had other objects to ' utterly fulfil' her spirit. A cherub, on 
whose baby brow and soft Siddonian lip, she could rain the warm 
baptism of maternal kisses ; the companionship of loving friends 
and elevated thoughts ; communion with Nature — these were 
her treasures and her guerdon. Past pre-judgments, misguided 
frankness, and the weakness of a clouded amor j^trioe, seemed 
alike forgotten. 

Tell me not that the country is lonesome. It is rich with 
voices of comfort, and tones of delight. It is a vast and solemn 
cathedral, with wails and roof of azure and gold, unpillared and 
illimitable ; its floors are tesselated with rainbow-colored flowers, 
and silver streams, and living verdure. It is a haunt wherein to 
muse, and dream, and lift the soul, until the heart overflows in 
the religion of its worship. 

Talking of worship, makes me say, that nothing can inspire 
in me a deeper feeling of devotion than sacred music. To hear 



OLLAPODIANA. 47 

the plaintive overture of the choir, and the organ — the stream of 
melody which seems to roll from the galleries, and to dissolve 
as it flows, into a kind of atmosphere above the aisles — is sooth-* 
ing and subduing. It banishes every low-thoughted care, and 
gives us ' such glimpses of Heaven as saints have in dreams.' 
One fancies that he hears the murmur of spirit-hymns, or else 
the rustling of celestial wings, and says within himself: 

'Let but a little part, 
A wandering breath of that high melody 

Descend into my heart, 
And change it, till it be 
Transformed, and swallowed up, oh love I in thee I' 

But while I profess my affection for sacred melodies, I can 
truly say that the secular and sentimental music of the day is 
* my very great detestation,' as Laureate Southey said of albums. 
The words are generally namhy-pamhj, to the last extent ; and 
are sung with such demi-grunts, and shrugs, and affected cadences, 
that I had as lief hear the town-crier, or that other stentorian 
personage who vociferates O yez ! O yez ! at a city court. Then, 
what contortions of phiz do singers undergo ! and how do they 
torture the lungs of those they teach, as well as the ears of those 
who listen ! ' Sir,' said an intelligent French Count once to me, 
as we were listening to a pupil of an Italian songster, * This mode 
would destroy the best chanteiise in the world ; it would break 
the ribs of a diligence horse — bah!' I thought so too. Vo- 
calists, now-a-days, are obliged to stretch their jaws almost to 
dislocation, and they roar you like lions. You would think, to 
see them sing, that they were of that class mentioned in sacred 
writ, wjio ' open their mouths wide for the latter rain.' They 
seem to delight in gutturals and grimace, flourishes and falsettos. 
One of these men, whose vocal orifice extended horizontally 
almost across his face, applied not long ago to a waggish physi- 
cian in Philadelphia, to ask his advice as touching the probable 
success of an operation to which he desired to submit himself. 

' I have sung for several years in public,' said the minstrel, ' and 
I find that the changes of fashion require louder tones than I am 
able to utter, while my mouth retains its present dimensions. I 
am obhged to whiffle out many of my long and large notes, as a 
grimalkin cries in a quinsy, cracked and broken. I want volume, 
and I have called to know whether you can aid me in effecting 
an alteration which will give my lips a fuller and freer play, and 
my voice more freedom.' 

' Perhaps so,' responded the physician ; ' but what do you re- 
quire ? What do you propose V 



48 OLLAPODIANA. 

' I wish, I say,' returned the singer, (who, let it be remem- 
bered, had an enormous houdie of his own,) ' that my mouth 
should be enlarged. It is too limited for my purpose.' 

'Oho !' said the doctor, ' 1 understand you. We'll see what 
can be done.' 

He arose, and placing his hand on the head of the patient, 
turned it to and fro, like a barber's garcon, while an expression 
of solemn drollery struggled in his features. 

' I can do so, Sir,' he continued, after a short pause, ' and 
easily ; but there is a preliminary operation, which may distress 
and perhaps disfigure you. It is a long job, and you may not 
consent to it.' 

' To any thing, my dear doctor, that will effect my object. 
Pray tell me what is requisite to be done V 

' Why, my friend, you wish your mouth widened : it is now 
uncommonly expansive ; and in order to extend its limits any 
farther, it will first be necessary to remove your cars, they being 
obstacles at each corner!' 

It may be conjectured that the operation was declined, and 
that the vocalist quitted his adviser in the sulks. Such was 
the fact. 

By the way, the physician of whom I have thus spoken, is a 
kind of modern Abernethy : full of benevolence, skill, and 
merrimake. He knows how to distinguish to a nicety between 
positive illness and imaginary ailments, those children of hypo- 
chondria and spleen. He was once, and that not * sixty years 
since,' visited by a bloated and ricketty hon vivant, who had epi- 
curized himself almost to Death's door, where, like the Irish- 
man's horse in the play, he seemed ready to go in without 
knocking. His proboscis was a model of convivial rubicundity ; 
but the corners of his mouth were drawn downward with a look of 
settled misanthropy. In short, he had eaten too much, for too 
long a time ; the genial juices of his system had become tart 
and acid ; while his mind, never the most cordial or elevated, 
had become cloudy, sluggish, and indiscriminative of good. 

The epicure approached the Esculapian disciple, with a visage 
as sour as if he had just effected the deghuition of all the ipeca- 
cuanha in Christendom. He slid with his gouty limbs into a 
chair, and vociferated : 

' Well, doctor, here I am, and I am just going to die. Not 
that I feel so very bad in my system, but just look at my nose ! 
What mean those devilish carbuncles, those branching red veins ! 
It can't be eating — it can't be drinking. I have given up all but 
one slice of beef, one of mutton, and one of pork, at dinner ; I 



OLLAPODIANA. 49 

eat fewer potatoes at a sitting than I used to do ; and where I was 
wont to take three glasses of brandy, or wine, whether it be Ma- 
deira, Port, Sherry, or Heidsiek, I now take but two. I ea't 
fewer suppers, or at least not quite so many late ones, and those 
not so heartily as I once did ; yet I sleep badly ; have strange 
dreams, and wear this salamander-looking nose. What the deuce 
am I to do ? It makes me very unhappy. It torments me con- 
tinually, by the itching which it produces. I want your candid 
opinion on this matter, doctor — and I want it soon — or I shall be 
a dead man.' 

' Well, my friend,' replied the Healer : ' I have but one thing 
to recommend, and if you refuse it, all is lost. I have often told 
you that you would kill yourself with gormandizing : you have 
visited me time and again with your ailings, and all my advice, 
which would have tended to remove them, have been studiously 
rejected. I can do no more, except to mention the remedy with 
respect to your distressed member, which I am now about to of- 
fer. You say it annoys you : and with that knowledge, as well 
as a sight of its redness in my eye, I repeat, there is but one 
course for you to pursue, which can yield you relief. If after 
hearing the plan, you shall decline it, let the peril be your own. 
I wash my hands of the whole business.' 

' Pray tell me, doctor ; I will follow your counsel implicitly. 
I vow, I fear if I do not, that these incipient eruptions will com- 
bine in a cancer. Do ease me at once, and tell me what I shall 
do, if my nose continues thus to itch me.' 

' Listen, then, for your comfort depends on what I say. If it 
does itch, as you declare, and as I doubt not — if it plagues you 
thus, you can only — I say it solemnly, as I said before — you 
can only throw yourself upon one method — one dernier resort, 
which is, TO scratch it ! Do this, and relief will follow ; 
and remember with gratitude that it was I advised you ! Good 
morning.' 

This was as good an answer, under the circumstances, as 
could have been made. How many nervous ladies and hypped 
gentlemen, are the bane of the physician — wearying his soul out 
^vith their fancied ills ! It were well if we had more Abernethys 
in our catalogue of doctors. How this excellent and praise- 
worthy fraternity contrive to enjoy life so well, and to look so 
round and happy as the most of them do, is to me a puzzle. 



Speaking of puzzles, reminds me, Reader, of one now lying 
perdue in my breeches pocket, which I am about to transcribe 
for your edification. Rack your brain over it, for it is a verita- 

4 



50 OLLAPODIANA. 

ble enigma, and susceptible of solution. Ten to one, you don't 
guess it ! A wide round has that enigma gone, among the Phil- 
adelphia lawyers — that proverbially puzzle-solving tribe — yet it 
remains unravelled. As the newspapers say, when a sheep has 
been stolen, and the thief escaped, ' The whole matter is veiled 
in impenetrable mystery.' It was engendered by a savant who 
wore a red wig, and took a great deal of snufF. What is it? 
There's the question ? 

A NEW PUZZLE. 

It is as high as all the stars, 

No well was ever sunk so low ; 
It is in age, five thousand years, 

But was not born an hour ago- 

It is as wet as water is. 

No red-hot iron e'er was drier; 
As dark as night, as cold as ice, 

Shines like the sun, and burns like fire, 

No soul, nor body to consume — 

No fox more cunning, dunce more dull ; 

'Tis not on earth, 'tis in this room. 
Hard as a stone and soft as wool. 

'Tis of no color, but of snow. 

Outside and inside black as ink; 
AH red, all yellow, green and blue — 

This moment you upon it think. 

In every noise, this strikes your ear, 

'Twill soon expire, 'twill ne'er decay ; 
Does always in the light appear, 

And yet was never seen by day. 

Than the whole earth it larger is, 

Than a small pin's point 't is less ; 
I'll tell you ten times what it is. 

Yet after ail, you shall not guess ! 

'Tis in your mouth, 't was never nigh — 

Where'er you look, you see it still ; 
'Twill make you laugh, 'twill make you cry ; 

You feel it plain, touch what you will. 

I have no great respect for charades, rebuses, and riddles, but 
the foregoing puzzle is so ' very mysterious,' as Paul Pry would 
say, that it will well repay an hour's study. Who gives it up ? 
I consider it worth finding out. It will be found different from 
one half those forlorn enigmas which pay so poorly for a discov- 
ery. Such things remind me of the missionary who was ascend- 
ing the Mississippi with some religious tracts, and stepped on 



OLLAPODIANA. 61 

shore from a flat-boat, to accost an old lady who was knitting be- 
fore a low shanty, under a tree near the river. It was in the 
Asiatic cholera time, and the epidemic was then in New Orleans. 

' My good woman,' said the evangelist, as he offered her a 
tract, ' have you got the gospel here V 

' No, Sir, we han't,' replied the old crone, ' but they've got it 
awfully down to New O'leens !' 

The question was a puzzle. 

It is better, I take it, to laugh than to cry ; and. Reader,' I 
hope thou relishest a joke. If thou dost not, I am sorry for 
thee. If thy ears are deaf to jenx d''es2)rit, and thine eye look- 
eth around upon the world with a dullness which humor cannot 
brighten, then I say. Go to, thou art not of my kidney. ' As a 
Dutch host, if you come to an inn in Germanie, and dislike your 
fare, diet, lodging, etc., replies, in a surly tone, ' If you like not 
this, get you to another inn,' so 1 resolve, if you like not my 
writing, go read something else. I do not much esteem thy cen- 
sure ; take thy course ; 't is not as thou wilt, nor as I will ; 
for every man's witty labor takes not, except the matter, subject, 
occasion, and some commending favorite, happen to it.' 



Apropos of crying : I know a clever and venerable septua- 
genarian, who, when he should laugh, always weeps. Tell him a 
good story, or a bit of pleasant news, and he will sob as if his 
heart would break. I met him not long since in the country, in 
a mixed company ; the brilliant fragments of a marriage party. 
The bridegroom was of his household ; and when the good old gen- 
tleman found that his young relative had committed matrimony 
with a lovely specimen of girlhood, and under the most favorable 
auspices, he burst forth into an irrepressible flood of sorrow and 
joy together. His chair shook under him with the intensity of 
his emotions, as if it partook of them ; while his aged optics — 
' purging thick amber and plum-tree gum' — exhibited his amia- 
ble weakness in a fruitful river of brine. It was a hearty spec- 
tacle, to see such sympathy and genial feeling in the bosom of 
Age. I love to see these ancient reservoirs of sentiment occa- 
sionally stirred up with the pole of passing events. 

' Did you have a pleasant party, on the evening of the bridal V 
quoth the old gentleman to one of the nuptial train. 

' O, delightful !' was the answer — ' perfectly delightful !' 

'Good gracious!' — responded the querist — 'you don't say 
so !' And then he collapsed again into a paroxysm of doleful 
enjoyment, that was most edifying to observe. 

Well, I love to see these things ; I love to see the fountains 



52 OLLAPODIAXA. 

of affection welling up from the slow-throbbing heart of Eld. 
When I become old ; when the vital current plays tardily and 
sadly through the shrunken conduits of my frame ; when at 
times, I ' 'gin to be a-weary of the sun ;' when the sober au- 
tumnal shadows are stealing along my pathway, and voices from 
the Past tell me how many are lost that I have loved — then let 
me cherish those that remain ; let me be interested in their en- 
joyments, and let the light which beams from their open brows 
and loving eyes, sink warmly on my heart ! 

By the way, I like those representations of age, which we see 
sometimes in the Scottish pictures of Wilkie, and in paintings of 
the Flemish school — where the elderly gentleman, as in John 
Anderson my Jo, is represented as the very personification of 
good feeling. I love to see your ' old 'un' enjoy his joke. 
How well do I remember observing my father sit down and shake 
his capacious sides over Knickerbocker's History ! Yet he 
was a sage, grave man ; had shouldered his musket, and carried 
his knapsack through many a long campaign, in the Revolution, 
and commanded his troops in the last war with honor. His heart 
was not saddened, however, by the remembrance of the trials that 
he had endured for his country ; and well was he able, in the even- 
ing of his decline, ' to show how fields were won' — for he had 
won them. 

Military matters have materially altered of late years. 
There is a vast deal of superfluous courage extant. In a time 
of profound peace, the good citizens of many of our states are 
bored with fines and mulcts, that ought to be discarded alto- 
gether. Then, what a sight do some of our militia companies 
present? They remind me of the story of the French Prince, 
who visited England, and on his arrival at Cambridge, was 
greeted by a volunteer company of neighboring clowns, com- 
manded by a supreme hind, who exceeded all his train-band for 
clumsiness and bad culture. After undergoing a sort of review 
before the noble stranger, the captain approached him, and beg- 
ged to know the opinion he entertained of the company that 
fronted him. 

' Sare,' said the Prince, ' I 'ave seen great many companie ; 
great many battallion ; I 'ave seen de grand corps de Napoleon ; 
de guard National ; I 'ave seen de allied armee ; I 'ave seen de 
Swiss and de Jarman, de Russ and de Pruss, but ma foi, cap- 
tain, I 'ave nevare seen such an extraordinare companie as yours ; 
nevare — nevare /' 

The compliment was considered equivocal. 



OLLAPODIAXA. 53 

Country trainings are nearly on a par with country serenades. 
If their dispraise can be expressed in a more appropriate simile, 
I should be glad to find it out. A friend of mine, in one of tlie 
interior towns of the Key-stone State, recently undertook to 
serenade a young lady toward whom he had a kind of sentimen- 
tal propensity. I dare say he promised good music, being far 
more notorious for promises than 'performance ; but when the 
evening came, the expectant damsel was greeted with such a 
concord of sounds, as had not been heard since the days of Ba- 
bel. Tin horns, fiddles, made of cornstalks, cow-bells, triangles, 
a fife, a bass drum — base it was ! — and that guttural instrument, 
the bassoon ; these, played upon by a band of boorish tatterde- 
mallians, made up the music and the band. The wakeful Venus 
endured it as long as her weak nerves would allow ; v/hen she 
arose, ' in bed gown clad,' and popping her night-cap' d head from 
the window, poured forth such a polyglott remonstrance — in 
Dutch, English, and patois — that the serenaders were obliged 
to decamp with a most precipitate scattering. Would that our 
ungainly and useless militia might obey the public remon- 
strance — follow the example, and do likewise ! 



NUMBER FIVE. 

September, 1835. 

My good friend of.-a Reader, let ws have another chat to- 
gether. I must spin my yarn now and then, or I should grow 
melancholy, and you would burst in ignorance. I love this hap- 
hazard way of writing ; I can be as discursive as a disporting 
colt, when high-strung health incites him to dancing pleasaunce, 
and his frame is replete with pasture. My charter is as large as 
the wind ; and I allow myself to ' flare up' on almost any topic. 
It is the best way. I have no ambitious veins of thought under 
my skull ; I expect not preferment ; I am a lover of quiet, and 
despise notoriety. I leave that boon to be clutched at by a thou- 
sand little celebrities of the day. I wish to be familiar, but not 
too bold ; and easy, but not too tame, neither. Of renown, I 
experienced enough last week to satisfy me for a decade. My 
strongest aspirations were gratified by the appearance of my 
name in the Post-office list of letters — a marked distinction, 
which seems like fame — and for which two extra cents were paid 
without a murmur. Now that my name is up in this way, T can 
afford to seize my quill, and let it play, in holyday spirit, among 



54 OLLAPOUIANA. 

Scenes and Sentences. Like good old Democritus, junior, I 
can say to him who reads me, that "Tis not my study or intent 
to compose neatly, which an orator requires, but to express my- 
self readily and plainly, as it happens ; so that, as a river runs, 
sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow ; now direct, 
then per ambages; now deep, then shallow; now broad, then 
narrow, doth my style flowe ; now serious, then light ; now 
comickal, then satyrickal ; now more elaborate, then remiss, as 
the subject requires, or I stand affected. And if thou vouchsafe 
to read this treatise, it shall seem no otherwise to thee than the 
way to an ordinary traveler — sometimes foul, sometimes fair ; 
here champion, there enclosed ; barren in one place, better soil 
in another ; by woods, groves, hills, dales, plains, and so forth, 
will I lead thee through variety of objects, some of which thou 
shalt surely like.' This, I take it, is the way to be agreeable. 
Your fellow who sits down to his page with a brimstone spirit, or 
with turgid thoughts, generally plays the part, either of a misan- 
thrope or a jackass ; two characters that, next to a bum-bailifF 
after a militia fine, I hold in the supremest contempt. One of the 
first-mentioned genus I know, who is eternally complaining of the 
world. With the soul of indomitable discontent ever rankling 
within him, he looks on every scene with an eye which pleasure 
can not brighten ; he takes every child of Adam for a rascal, and 
for all he meets has a black look and a cross word. Yet no one, 
probably, has had more cause of gratitude, than himself, for 
favors and benefactions received at the hands of his fellows. Yet 
he goes on, Ishmael-like,- injuring and injured ; having the fool- 
ishness to think that he can derive pleasure without givivg it, and 
repay good with evil : 

' He is a sackcloth bard, God help his grief! 

He blames the bowers with night-shade overrun; 
He weeps his eyes red o'er a faded leaf. 
And wastes his pathos on the dying sun.' 

He supposes that men are monsters, and women as treacherous 
as mermaids. Thus believing and acting, he is ever in hot wa- 
ter. To hear him talk, or to read his writings, you would fancy 
that the man had just escaped from Bedlam. Litigation is his 
element; and the suffering lawyers whom he retains, are puzzled 
to decide which is the most doubtful, the character of their 
client, or their prospect of pay. You would laugh, reader, to 
hear this fellow talk about the wasting calamities of life. Ro- 
bust, whiskered, and sturdy in his look — with the exception of 
his saffron-colored visage, that index of bile — he represents 
himself as the elect of the grave ; on the extremest verge of 



OLLAPODIANA. 66 

which he would be thought to have been standing any time these 
ten years. He once called, at a University, upon a friend of 

mine, who was busy in his professorship. ' Ah, Mr. L ■',' 

said he, in a solemn, sepulchral tone, 'this is a dark day for me. 
Misery is my lot ; despair dogs my footsteps ; friends cut me ; 
the fates hunt me like blood-hounds ; and a cloud of obloquy 
hangs about my name. I feel that my country is unworthy of 
such a nurseling of the Nine as I. I think of going to Greece.^ 

'To Greece r exclaimed the professor; "you had better ^o7o 
grass /' 

I believe he took the learned gentleman's advice ; for he seems 
to have been ever since on the journey. 

Now this is a specimen of a class of men, that I sincerely 
pity, and can not abide. They are canine occupants of the great 
manger of life ; they eat not themselves, in peace, neither will 
they let others. I aroynt them, one and all. I love your good, 
hearty person, who does not despise his fellow men, nor deem 
them all caitiffs ; who has a smile, a joke, and human sympathies. 
There is nothing like these, unless it be susceptibility to beauty. 
This is a source of superior pleasure. Who does not love to 
look at a pretty woman ? 

' Who can curiously behold 

The smoothness and the sheen of Beauty's cheek, 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ?' 

I regard ladies in public masses, as I do a splendid gallery of 
pictures. I say, reader — just in your individual ear — did you 
never particularly relish a jaunt on board a steam-boat, when you 
found beautiful women there ? Tell me honestly, did they not, 
though strangers, materially enhance the dehghtsomeness of your 
journey ? Have you not singled out some fairest One of them 
all, and directed a volley of desperately-agreeable looks to her- 
ward ; greatly delectated, peradventure, when they met return ? 
You sit and feel the bland air playing over your temples ; the 
broad river expands before you ; beautiful scenes flit by on either 
side ; and then you drink in a delicious intoxication with your 
eyes, which delights the more, because you know it is epheme- 
ral. It is one of those pleasures that nobody writes about, and 
every body feels. And do you not entertain a deep regret, when 
the city, with its pompous spires and bay, appears in view ; when 
you near the crowded wharf, and amid bustling trunk-hunters and 
band-box exporters, you perceive your eye-acquaintance glide 
away? Somebody stands near the wharf; it is her cousin 
George, or Henry, and her sister. Don't you envy the young 



56 OLLAPODIAXA. 

thing who inserts her sweet face and pouting lips under that veil, 
and receives that ringing kiss ? To be sure you do — and that 
is just all the good it does you. The fair Inconnue is rolled off 
in a coach, and the next day you have forgotten her altogether. 
This is one of those cheap and unmentioned felicities, of which 
we have so many to sweeten existence ; that are as pleasant as 
they are pure and fleeting to the participant, and which are — 
mortal jiat to a sjwctator! 

It is with the troubles of life, as with its pleasures ; there are 
a great many that you can not allude to. Somebody may annoy 
you in an unredressable way ; places that you wish to visit may be 
' improved' by others ; a man may change hats with you, seduce 
your umbrella, or tread on your toe. But I can always endure 
these things at an opera, or a play, when well attended. Beauty 
hallows and sanctifies a thousand inconveniences. I have stood 
in a kind of rapture, looking at feminine loveliness, when I was 
hedged around in a back box by a clan of unctuous and perspir- 
ing varlets ; but when I could discern Beauty, I cared not. I 
could mark the Phidian lip, the Grecian nose, the uplifted, open 
brow, the tasteful coiffure, and see the negligent eye-lashes rise 
and fall, over orbs of surpassing lustre. What cared I, that 
their Hght, as if ' shot from the deadly level of a gun,' came to 
me past the old hats and oily coats of expectorating vagabonds ? 

I do not know how it is, but such things do greatly augment 
one's better sympathies. And it is often done by ocular decep- 
tion. I have a friend who always construes a look from a lady, 
at an opera or play, as a direct tribute to himself; yet he is short- 
sighted, and can not tell, in nine cases out of ten, whether he is 
the observed or not. His amour iiropre, however, always takes 
the brightest side. I know several blades who, from this cause, 
are patronising tailors to an extravagant degree ; depredating upon 
every one of those artisans who ' exults to trust, and blushes to 
be paid.' One youth of this kind I know — a dolt of the very 
first water — who said to an acquaintance, recently, in my pres- 
ence : * Do you know the INIiss 's of Noo-Yawk ? What 

devilish susceptible crechures they ar', to be su-ah ! I called on 
them a few months ago, and sang to them ' Zurich's Waters,' 
aud ' Me Sister De-ah,' and don't you think, they both fell in 
love with me? Egad, they did so; but I couldn't relieve, and 
so I cut them. I vow I won't be cruel to any body if I can 
help it ; I won't, positively ; would you V 

This was at an Ordinary. ' I say, straanger,' said a rough- 
looking book-pedlar from Illinois, who sat near this scented brag- 
gart, 'you are not a man, are you? — a full-bound man? You 



OLLArODIANA. 67 

don't sartingly answer to a masculine title, do you ? I should 
take you for a pocket edition of a sheep. Them's my sentiments, 
and you have 'em gratis. You havn't brains enough to fascinate 
a kitten ; yet you do raally fancy you are something oncommon ! 
You are too flat to keep your eyes open, fully ; and I'll bet a 
wolf-trap, that the sight of a full-blown poppy would set you to 
sleep, any time. Oh, pshaw ! Landlord, give this thing a weak 
lemonade, scented with rose water, and tote me a pint of brandy ; 
hot, with a red pepper in it, and a common segar. I'll go 
bail for the bill.' 

The irresistible young man walked oiF, with a mingled look of 
inanity and anger. 

It is astonishing how many stupid people you meet in society ; 
fellows with brains in their purses, who will talk you an infinite 
deal of nothing, and thus beget a reputation of being remarkably 
fluent and agreeable persons. A sample of this genus I lately 
encountered in a fashionable drawing-room. I inquired after the 
health of an acquaintance of mine, and friend of his, whom he 
had met in Washington, during the winter, adding that I esteemed 
him a fine fellow. 

' Fine fellow,' said Mr. Voluble Pipkins, ' fine fellow, d'ye 
say? By Jove, he's not only a fine fellow, Sir, but d'ye ob- 
serve, he's a good fellow — a glorious fellow — a noble man, Sir; 
an immense, a stupendous man. Egad, Sir, I consider him equal 
to — Moore's Melodies!' 

I tried to review this laudatory emission of vox et pretcrea Jiihil, 
and to ascertain what Moore's Melodies had to do in comparison 
with a clever fellow, but a new outpouring of verbiage left me no 
time for the effort. 

Pipkins now began to describe his travels in the South, in the 
course of which he gave a fact an inference that I thought rather 
unique. 

' How do you like the Southrons V I inquired. 

* Oh, bless you, ver' well ; ver' well ; the moral excellence 
of the people is proverbial ; but the mutton is scarce and poor. 
However, I don't like mutton, myself!' 



A GREAT many young men imagine that any thing can be said 
to a woman in the way of nonsense, and relished to boot. I re- 
member a country party, a few miles from the metropolis, where 
a few young middies and dragoons were invited. The rosy- 
cheeked girls were playing blind man's buff", when we arrived. 



58 OLLAPODIANA. 

A few maids, beyond a certain age, were planted round the sides 
of the apartment. Toward one of these, a mischievous young 
dragoon bent his way. He was, let me premise, in the incipiency 
of jollification. 

'Tranquil lady!' said he, with a grave look, 'you seem to 
contemplate this scene of enjoyment with an indifferent eye. To 
me it is a picture of delight. It warms my bosom extensively. 
It gives to my mental optics those scenes in the West, where the 
settlers used to recruit our corpuses with creatur' comforts. 
It reminds me of the pleasant days of my youth, when I lay upon 
the damp cold earth, and listened to the cannon's roaring sym- 
phonies.' 

' I don't understand that 'are,' said the ancient damsel, in a 
husky tone, and with a look uncommonly ' furtive.' 

Reader, did you ever eat a supper at a country party ? It is 
quite V autre chose from one in the city. Your ice-cream, salads, 
and champaigne, are not there ; but in their stead are substan- 
tialities of the heaviest kind. It is a sort of late dinner, and 
you have course after course in eternal abundance. In the pres- 
ent case, 

' 'Tis fit that I should tell you what 

Those gentles had to eat ; 
How ale went round, and how, God wot, 

The tables groaned with meat. 
Suffice to say, that trim sirloin 
Of bullock, proud in death to join 

With radish-of-the-horse; 
Flanked by a soup's embossed tureen. 
And eke by cauliflower, f^^tnein 
Winsome and white as ere was seen, 

Adorned the firstling course.' 

This was followed by a various profusion of good things, the 
number of which it would have puzzled Zerah Colburn to com- 
pute. I never saw so complete a specimen of a legitimate rural 
repast. It was broad morning before we came home ; none of 
us at a loss to know whij such a difference exists between the 
delicate belles of cities, and their buxom rivals of the country. 



Speaking of country girls — you will see them at camp-meet- 
ings, plenty as blackberries. Did you ever visit one of these 
convocations ? There is a sublimity about them, notwithstanding 
several ludicrous features, which must be felt to be appreciated. 
I once attended one, in the interior of New York. It was Au- 
tumn, and our partly left home on a tour of ten miles, just as the 



OLLAPODIANA. 69 

evening sun was sending his slant radiance over the many-colored 
glories of an October landscape. River, lake, and gorgeous 
woodland, shone in the declining day-beams ; the tall poplar 
gave to the gale its yellow leaf, and melancholy whisper ; the 
moping owl, as the twilight deepened, complained to the moon. 
I was quite young, and full to overflowing with animal spirits. 
But when w^e reached the camp-ground, in the forest, I was 
hushed into awe. It was enclosed by a hedge of green boughs, 
nearly a mile in circumference ; tents encircled the area, against 
the hedge, and the light of torches placed in sticks high among 
the trees, beamed fitfully in the evening gusts, upon the varie- 
gated and swaying boughs of the wilderness. Unperceived, I 
clomb a sapling by the side of our tent, and surveyed the scene- 
From a rude pulpit in the midst of the vast assemblage, a 
sonorous preacher was delivering his message. He spoke with 
much eloquence, and ended with prayer, and the naming of a 
hymn. The multitude beneath him tossed tumultuously around, 
a living ocean of humanity. Shrieks, groans, supplications, and 
cries of ' glory !' rent the air. Sundry brethren were moving 
briskly about, comforting mourners, and singing snatches of 
sacred song. Never shall I forget one sweet voice, seemingly 
endowed with supernatural melody, breathing out : 

'Jesus, lover of my soul, 

Let me to thy bosom fly, 
While the billows o'er me roll, 

While the tempest still is high. 
Hide me, oh! my Saviour, hide, 

Till the storms of life be past ; 
Safely to the haven guide, 

Oh receive my soul at last ." 

Beyond the enclosure, I could perceive groups of ragamuffins, 
with torches stuck in the ground, under the boughs of a dark 
and gloomy pine, swearing, drinking, and playing cards with a 
straggling party of friendly Indians. Jt was an OUapodiana kind 
of a scene. 

When the hynm was finished, one of those dull souls arose, 
of whom not a few may be found in all persuasions, who seem 
ordained of heaven to make their audiences literal specimens of 
self-denial, by listening to their ministrations. He drawled out 
his vapid sentences in the worst and weakest taste. His text 
was from the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. In des- 
cribing the beggar at the gate of Dives, (so beautifully depicted 
by David Teniers, in his Mavvnis Richc,) he said it was not 
wonderful that the mendicant should have chosen such a posi- 



60 OLLAPODIANA. 

tion : ' for,' said he, logically, ' provisions in them days was 
sumptuous and plenty. Even the beggars got a good living, and 
Lazarus, no doubt of it, liked his place. Individiwals of his 
caUing didn't then get from rich men's tables, as they do now, 
little bits of bread, and 'tature, and pork, and pickle ; no, my 
hearers, they got great i^lates of pic, and sich things. Hence 
we view, that Lazarus was in dan-ger, when surrounded with 
dogs, that might have stolen half his victuals !' 

It came to pass, some months after this, that a friend of mine 
heard this same divine preach a sermon at the funeral of a middle 
aged lady, who was greatly beloved in the community where she 
died. Her family was large, and highly respectable ; but having 
moved a long time previous from a neighboring State, little was 
known of their origin. The obsequies were attended by a large 
and sympathising community. The preacher opened his dis- 
course, by speaking of the good character of the deceased, and 
the sad occasion which called the company together. ' But, my 
friends,' said he, ' unknown to you, I have greater cause for 
seriousness at this solemn time, than any one before me. Even 
these surviving relations, who are most interested in what I am 
going to communicate, have forgotten the time when, long ago, 
and afar off, they once heard my voice. It is now about twenty 
years since the father of the deceased, and of her brothers and 
sisters now seated with other relatives present, suddenly expired 
before my eyes. Yes, 1 had the melancholy satisfaction, among 
thousands of others, of seeing him hung. I read the hymn 
which was sung ere he swung ; and I hope — though he seemed 
not to relish my informing him that he would soon go from ' works 
to rewards,' nor to appreciate my kind advice generally — that, 
as most persons who die from the scaffold generally do, he went 
to glory, right off.' 

With this pleasing and complimentary reminiscence, the speak- 
er took his text from that chapter in the book of Esther, wherein 
is recorded the execution of Haman. From this he drew, neck 
and heels, the far-fetched inference, that all earthly things were 
uncertain, and that it was equally hard to tell how, as when, we 
should die. After a prolix ' improvement,' he concluded — -to 
the great edification, doubtless, of the audience in general, and 
the mourners in particular. 

To return to our camp-meeting. We left the ground as the 
day was breaking. The noisy congregation ; the declining watch- 
fires by the tents ; the solemn drapery of the tall cedars, just 
catching the first smile of Light ; all formed a scene to be re- 
membered. I think, now, how appropriately could have been 



OLLAPODIANA. 62 

applied to it, as we stepped slowly from the ground, the lines of 
Mrs. Hemans : 

' Yes, lightly, softly move ! 
There is a Power, a Presence in the woods ; 
A viewless Being, that with life and love 
Informs the reverential solitudes ; 
i The rich air knows it, and the mossy sod — 

I Thou, Thou art here, my God ! 

' And if with awe we tread 
The minster floor, beneath the stoned pane. 

And 'midst the mouldering banners of the dead, 
Will the green, voiceful wild seem less Thy fane? 
This fane, which Thou hast built ? — where arch and roof 
Are of Thy living woof?' 



Let me say one word, Reader, of her from whom I have 
just quoted. She was my friend, and we have often exchanged 
thoughts and words with each other. Not soon shall we look 
upon her like again. She was a pure spirit, essentially disem- 
bodied, before she left the world. Made ' perfect through suffer- 
ing,' she seemed permitted by Heaven to linger beyond her time 
on earth, a glorious example of feminine loveliness beautified by 
Pain. A volume only would do justice to her worth ; and for 
her gifts, her works remain their eulogy. In all things, I revered 
her ; and while musing to her memory, may I usurp a signature, 
and trust myself in song? 

MRS. HEMANS. 

We weep not, when the yellow leaves are gathered, 
While Autumn's peace and plenteousness abound ; 

When from the tinted boughs, like rainbows withered, 
The golden fruit drops richly to the ground ; 

When solemn Nature round her sadness throws 

A mellow glory and a warm repose. 

We weep not then, amid the fruitage falling, 

Whose affluent incense lises to the sky; 
Though then we hear soft spirit-voices calling, 

That tell how loved and cherished things must die; 
For to the fairest blooms a change must come. 
That the ripe treasures may be garnered home. 

'Twas thus with thee. Beloved I their holy mission 

Thy heart and soaring lays at last fulfilled ; 
Then rolled the cloud beyond the spirit's vision, 

Till all the music of thy lyre was stilled ; 
And like a raeltinc wave, or waning sun, 
Passed from this vale of ill the Gifted One ! 



62 ollaPobiana. 

'Tis well, divinest Soul, with thee ! for Heaven 

Had filled thine inmost thoughts with sacred dreams; 

And to thy reverie and song was given 
A world of radiant and immortal gleams ; 

Yea, gorgeous pictures of a better land 

Did ever to thy view their scene expand. 

Now, all their fadeless pomp and glow perceiving, 

Thou breathest freely, in celestial air ; 
Thy tender heart hath ceased its weary grieving. 

And the pure mind is bathed in rapture there ; 
While, mid fair ways no earthly foot hath trod. 
In white thou walUest, present with thy God ! 

Thou hearest melody, whose flowing numbers 

Once came but faintly to thy mortal ear, 
When ills of time were lost in evening slumbers, 

And magic Fancy brought her Eden near; 
Thou hast thy yearning hopes' fruition now — 
The wreath o/ Paradise surrounds thy brow ! 

Thou hearest harps delicious, sweetly ringing, 
And sister Spirits fan thee with their wings; 

With them thou minglest, and with them art singing. 
Where, named of Life, the crystal river springs; 

Wliere, like some changing prism, expand the skies, 

And purple hills from vernal vales arise. 

Thou art in glory, oh rejoicing Spirit ! 

Thou look'st on flowers that no pale frost may stain; 
And from a changeless Friend thou dost inherit 

A lyre triumphant, breathing not of pain ; 
Thou hast thy Home at last, from sorrow free. 
And all is blessedness and peace with thee ! 
iPhiladelphia. w. o. c. 

I have just seen an engraved bust of Mrs. Hemans, which I 
can not doubt is a perfect resemblance of her features, with the 
exception of the eyes. It was taken, as I suppose, in her early 
and happy days. The soft wavy locks are parted sweetly on her 
high forehead, and fall in beautiful tresses by either cheek ; the 
expression of the face is cheerful — beautiful ; and every linea- 
ment betokens the presence of intellect. The temples are lofty 
and full ; and the department of the brain strongly developed. 



I PERCEIVE that I am beginning to speak like a phrenologist, 
for which 1 beg my reader's pardon. I have small sympathy 
and respect for those learned professors of craniology. I do not 
believe that the human skull ever was intended as a sort of topo- 
graphical chart of the soul and its affections. The general prin- 
ciples of the science are plausible — perhaps /r?/e ; but when you 
come to subdivide a man's sconce into innumerable sections of 



OLLAPODIANA. 03 

thought and feeling ; when you give to every impulse its place of 
origin ; it is, as my friend Grant Thorburn said in Boston, 
' coming to rather close quarters.' The truth is, such a science, 
pursued to its ultimaium, is the height of folly. I have no reve- 
rence for names, thank heaven ! unless they are hallowed by rea- 
son. I acknowledge that the brain is placed in a certain part of 
the human head ; that if that part be small, or diminished, the 
quantity of gumption, in the individual who owns the sconce, 
will be ' nothing to speak of;' and this is the extent of my phre- 
nology. Half the modern professors of this science are as ar- 
rant quacks as ever vended nostrum. They tell a story of an 
acquaintance of mine — a wag, who, by die way, has never denied 
it — to this effect. He was Aeievmmed. io quiz a lihrenologist. 
Accordingly, he repaired to his shoe-maker, and caused him to 
place upon his head an enormous organ of ivax. The disciple 
of Crispin performed his task well ; placed the organ rightly ac- 
cording to the lithographed plate, and stuck upon it a goodly 
covering of human hair. Thus accoutered, our hero visited the 
phrenological professor. He submitted his head to the decisive 
palms of his Bump-ship, and received his opinion. ' God bless 
me, Sir!' said the learned judge, 'you have an admirable head, 
in many respects ; but you possess one organ which speaks 
volumes for your character.' 

* What is that, pray ?' 

' This is it, Sir — allow me to direct your hand to it, Sir — 
this is it. Do you feel it ? That, Sir, is the organ of adhesive- 
ness — and never before, I think, did I see it so strongly de- 
veloped. Believe me. Sir, you are a wonderful exemplification 
of our theory ; so much so, indeed, that I should almost be 
tempted to pronounce you a lusus natura. of science.' 

' No you don't !' said the patient, removing the waxen pro- 
tuberance ; ' you are the curiosily ; you can't tell gum from 
gumption!' 

I MUST close. I fear I am getting prosy — which I dislike, 
of all things. It is pleasant to talk for a while, when our spirits 
are animated, and we feel colloquial ; but it is folly to push con- 
versation, when the soul which creates it bescins to flag;. It is 
like the attempt at festivity among the last lingerers at a ball, in 
the 'small hours' of the morning — a deplorable scene ! 

' All, all is gloom ! and dandies in the dumps, 
Dance in responsive dullness to their pumps, 
Like some town hack, that, spavined, old, and blind, 
Trots to the wheezing of his broken wind.' 



64 OLLAPODIANA. 

Ere long, reader, we will discourse togetlier again ; in October, 
probably — in November, certainly. ' There will be divine sar- 
vice in this meeting-house,' said a colored man of God, at a 
church of his order, ' in a fortnight, Gob willing — in tree week, 
wheder or no r I reject such predictions; but I hope we shall 
meet again, my ' reading public' — 'till when, a Dieu! Voila le 
commencement dufm /' 



NUMBER SIX. 

October, 1835. 

Magnificent and pompous Autumn ! It cometh before me 
with ' dyed garments' of glory ; with trailing clouds of innumer- 
ous tints, with leaves that fill the air with solemn whispers, and 
paint the viewless gusts in hues of beauty. Splendid Autumn ! 
Thy every feature is lovely to my soul. There is not a spraj 
which 3delds its tribute to the wind, that hath not a lesson in its 
shiver, and a moral in its sound. When the * sweet South' seeks 
in vain for the summer flowers, over which it ranged like a char- 
tered libertine, rifling their cups, and betraying their soft odors ; 
when the clouds lie in long red bars across the West, and the 
deep tones of woods and waters ring through the clear and 
searchable atmosphere — then is the Spirit of Autumn my monitor 
and my companion. I walk over the sere meadow ; I see the 
many-colored fruits piled up in rich profusion under the generous 
orchard trees ; I hear the pensive and farewell chanting of the 
birds, as they poise their pinions for milder climes, and I deem 
their melody a summons of gratitude — a call for thanksgiving. 
Then Memory is busy ; a sweet repose falls like golden light on 
every vision of the past, and all its regrets are lost in that en- 
chanting radiance. This is Autumn, to me. I think of the pure 
skies, the broad lakes, and the swelling mountains, on which the 
eyes of my childhood feasted, until I become again a resident 
among them, scaling verdant peaks, and looking abroad on seas 
of rainbow-foliage tossing to the breeze ; or mayhap, delec- 
tating my palate with gathered chesnuts, and my ear with their 
harmony, as they pattered on the leaves from the lofty burs : 
touching perchance. In their fall, the whirring wing of the par- 
tridge, as it wheeled through the woods. There is not a thought 
of Autumn that is sad to me. I love it for itself alone : ' scene 
of ripe fruits and mellow fruitfulness :' of calmness, beauty, and 
abundance ; it has voices, and sights, and influences, that I 



OLLAPODIANA. ©6 

would not exchange for a dukedom. I am always obliged to 
shake from my pen a few draps of superfluous enthusiasm, in 
the Autumn time. 

I WAS sitting yesterday, looking over my newspaper, and 
thinking of other times — to which direction this season always 
bids me turn — when I fell into a profound meditation on the 
great progress and power of those pregnant folios. I remember 
the time that when the weekly newsprint, brought to ' our village' 
by the post-rider, came to hand, I would pore over its blue and 
reeking columns with a degree of interest that nothing else could 
match. Every word of its contents, advertisements and all, 
would be devoured at a sitting. The dailies of New-York were 
smaller than the country weeklies now, and issued, perhaps, in 
smaller numbers. No crowds of boys beset the wharves, and all 
public places, of the metropolis, as now, with such vociferations 
as these : ' Hctb 's the Courier and Enquirer ! Here '5 the Sun, 
JefF'sonian, Tra-a-nscript ! Here^s the Journal of Commerce ! 
Yere '5 the American and the Post ! Yere 's the Star ivith the 
foreign news ! Yere '5 the ' Old Sarpent,' and the Spirits-o'- 
Seventy-six, and the Advertiser ! Yere 's the Spirits-Times, 
and the Morning Herald !' No trifling penny won a litde world 
of knowledge, then. How changed is 7)oiv the scene ! He who 
cannot read as he runs, at this era, must indeed be a wayfaring 
fool. I rejoice to see this glorious influence of the press per- 
vading our country. While it continues, we can never be other- 
wise than free. Guided, as it mainly is, by strength and vigor 
of intellect — inspired as it is, with the fervor of free bosoms — 
its course is onward, and its power irresistible. An unfettered 
press is the glory of a nation. Here, it should be peculiarly 
free ; else it cannot echo the voice of the people. What this 
people yet will be, in morals, in political importance, and in 
national power, depends greatly on the press. Its weight, in the 
broad scale of good and evil, is beyond the patriot's fear, or the 
enthusiast's dream. 

Respecting dreams, I would say a word. Surrounded as 
we are with mystery — with our yesterdays in the grave, and our 
to-morrows in Eternity — what is a greater mystery than a dream ? 
It comes to us when Ave are, as it were, in death ; when whole 
cities are still ; when the rich and poor, the rough and gentle, 
the care-worn and the careless, lie down in the blessed equality 
of slumber, and wrap around them the mantle of repose. How 
sweet must dreams be to the captive ! Dreams of the blue sky, 

5 



^ OLLAPODIANA. 

the shining stars, the open fields ; the moon, hke a golden lamp, 
rolling through the dark blue depths of heaven ! I have certainly 
had visions in the night-watches which have delighted me for 
months ; flinging about my daily paths a glow and beauty which 
tongue cannot utter, nor pen portray ; until I have been ready to 
say on waking, with one of old, ' Redde mihi campos mcos jloridos, 
columnam aiiream, assistentes angclos :' Give me my fields again, 
my most delicious fields, my pillar of a glorious light, and my 
assistant angels ! 

Reader, did you never have queer dreams ? Had you ever a 
vision of being at a fashionable party, and all at once discover 
that you had no coat on ? That one of your feet was a broom, 
wherewith, in obedience to some superior mandate, you were 
engaged in both dancing and sweeping ? I wot of one, who has. 

It is hard work to run in a dream. I have been chased by 
Indians thus, and could never get on. Some horrid weight 
hangs to one's feet ; he feels the breath of his enemy on his 
shoulders and neck — but it seems an age ere he is overtaken. 
It is folly to say that it is not unpleasant to be killed in a dream. 
I have laid down my life in this way, an hundred times. 

One curious vision 1 remember, in my boyish days. Me- 
thought I was crossing an immense abyss, on a single grape-vine, 
with Apollyon for a pilot. I forget his appearance exactly, but 
it was hideous in the extreme. He led me over the dark and 
dismal void, until I had reached the midwaj- part of the vine, 
when he attempted the gymnastic feat of throwing me off. I 
caught him by the hair, which me-seemed was composed of red 
hot wires, very fine, and with a giant's strength hurled him below. 
I hear yet sometimes the booming thunder of his * sail broad- 
vans,' as he fell. Then, methought I experienced a pair of 
beautiful wings, and sailed away upon them to a paradise of rest. 

I have done many valiant things in dreams, and made many 
valued acquaintances. In them I have held large discourse with 
Shakspeare, Milton, Sir Philip Sidney, Walter Scott, and I 
know not how many other worthies. Then my travels ! I know 
not where I have not been in my visions. My last tour of this 
sort was to Jerusalem. There I met many patriarchs and 
prophets, and delivered a bitter oration to Judas, on his treach- 
ery. On these occasions, I have always said to myself, ' Well, 
thank Heaven ! this is no dream. I have dreamed about such 
things heretofore, but this is rcal.^ In this style I have visited 
Paris and London ; have wept with Josephine at Malmaison ; 
and, as aid. de camp to Napoleon, assisted in reviewing his troops 
in the Champ de Mars. Heaven only knows how many times I 



OLLAPODTANA. #^ 

have dined with kings and princes, from Solomon down to Wil- 
Ham the Fourth. 

There is nothing so glorious as water in a dream! With 'a 
strange green light, the waves arise and roll. Speaking in a 
visionanj sense, I can say with St. Paul. ' A night and a day 
have I been in the deep.' I have been drowned several times ; 
and on one occasion, went across the Atlantic in a chariot, with 
Pharaoh in livery for a driver. Fantastical thoughts, like those 
of which Irving and Hood complain, often rise in thick-coming 
throngs to my mind ; sometimes laden with dolour, and at others, 
full of amusement and edification. 

I have wept in dreams, and bitterly, too. Once I had a 
vision, that two dear friends had gone to Indian as missionaries. 
I followed them, through dreadful tempests, across the ocean. 
We approached Calcutta ; a beautiful vision of palaces and piles, 
surrounded with hills of wonderful palm-trees, whose green leaves 
displayed around their borders a circle of glorious and pris- 
matic light. I touched the shore : the great car of Juggernaut 
seemed approaching, and foremost in the ranks of the idolaters, 
were the friends I sought. They had been converted to heathen- 
ism. Before I could reach them, they plunged themselves be- 
neath the car. I saw them crushed by the sanguinary wheels ; 
their blood streamed around me ! It was a horrid dream ; and 
when I awoke, how supremely happy did I arise, to thank God 
it was ' but a dream !' 



I HAVE a friend — he belongs to the confraternity of ancient 
and honorable bachelors — who is wont to describe a most pain- 
ful dream which he encountered in his thirtieth year. Before I 
give his vision, however, I will describe the Visionary. He is 
now about two, or, ' by'r Lady, inclining to three score ;' is very 
censorious, and declares that the ladies now-a-days are nothing, 
compared with those who flourished when ' we young fellows' 
dehghted society, in our powdered hair and graceful queues.' 
He says that people have much degenerated ; and still avers with 
pertinacious impudence, that he was once, and that not long ago, 
considered the Adonis of the town. Sad alteration ! I scarcely 
know what emblem would now represent his features. His face 
is like a faded apple, and his eyes twinkle from under his shaggy 
brows, like a mastiff's. He says a flat thing, laughs at it for 
some ten minutes, and then swears at the by-stander who does 
not ' comprehend the joke.' To what shall I liken this remnant 
of the past — this Ancient of Days? To a withered shrub? — 



68 OLLAPODIANA. 

a sapless, hollow bough ? No ; emblems fail. If he resembles 
anything, he is 

Most like to carcass perched on gallow-tree.' 

Well, to his dream. He thought he was young again, and in 
the midst of olden society — the gay Lothario of his time. He 
danced, and ' shook a graceful foot,' with many a damsel, at an 
evening ball. Encountering one who filled him with admiration, 
he proposed himself to her at once. He was accepted. A 
priest was present, and the dance was exchanged — a la mode de 
songe-creux — into a bridal party. The Bachelor was married : 
he pressed an angel to his bosom. 

Months rolled by — as they go in dreams — very swiftly, and 
the honey-moon' was over. My friend's angel proved a tartar. 
They had words — and from words (so the vision ran) they came 
to blows. These squabbles were renewed daily. At last, one 
day at breakfast, the unhappy Benedick determined to end his 
troubles. He poisoned his coffee, and drank it down. A dread- 
ful fever seized him ; he groaned, he thirsted, he burned with 
heat ; and with a hideous yell, he awoke ! — so delighted at his 
celibacy, that he jumped out of bed, and in the darkness of his 
apartment, watched only by the waning moon and stars, danced 
an energetic rigadoon. 

Now this was a dream that could only have entered the head 
of some rusty old single gentleman. I eschew his scoundrel 
opinions of matrimony, altogether. It has been called a lottery ; 
but it is only such in one sense ; for all who embark in it, have 
a full and fair opportunity to judge their prizes ; a probationary 
season, which affords all needful scrutiny of disposition and char- 
acter. I am of Milton his mind, with respect of marriage ; it is 
a pleasing and consummate ordinance, and when thoughtfully en- 
tered upon, right pleasant to the participants therein. A kind of 
marriage mania has broken out among all my friends ; they are 
dropping away one by one ; and all of them, happy fellows ! 
seem to say by their looks and actions, that they would not thank 
a king for his crown. You can't get them to take a glance at a 
picture in the shop-windows now, as you are going to dinner : 
they must hurry home — ' there all their treasures be.' A sense 
of loneliness sometimes arrests my spirit as I survey these glori- 
ous companions in their domestic retreats. I have seen the time, 
when 

' I would not my unhousel'd, free condition 
Put into circumscription and confine, 
For the sea's worth :' 

but that time is not remembered with pleasure, nor is its contin- 



OLLAPODIANA. 69 

uance desirable. Truly saith my kind, my beloved old Jeremy 
Taylor : ' There is nothing can please a man without love : noth- 
ing but that can sweeten felicity itself. When a man dwells ift 
love, then the breasts of his wife are as the droppings upon the 
hill of Hc7-mon, her eyes are fair as the light of heaven, she is a 
fountain sealed, and he can quench his thirst and ease his cares, 
and lay his sorrows down upon her lap, and can retire home as 
to his sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and 
chaste refreshments. No man can tell but he that loves his chil- 
dren, how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in 
the conversation of those dear pledges ; their childishness, their 
stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfec- 
tions, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and 
comfort to him that delights in their persons and society. She 
that is loved is safe, and he that loves is joyful.'' Such pictures as 
these, are delightful to see. A parental sort of feeling crawls 
over the heart of the bachelor as he reads, and he is ready to 
gird himself for adventure, and to say with the lord of Beatrice, 
' The world must be peopled !' 

I read this passage the other day to a casual acquaintance, and 

he said, profanely, it was ' d d nonsense !' But then he is 

proverbial for the extreme smallness of his soul. He is one of 
those kind of varlets, who are in a measure ' upon the town ;' 
who will indulge their bibulous propensities at the expense of 
any and everybody ; akin no doubt to the celebrated Simpkins, 
the eleemosynary wine-bibber, upon whose tomb-stone the fol- 
lowing epitaph was recorded, as if from the hand of a suffering 
friend : 

'What! Simpkins dead ! It cannot be. 

Sirapliins, will you take wine with me ? 

No answer — none? What! nothing said? 

Won't he take wine ? — he must be deadP 

The testimony or the anathemas of such a fellow can be nei- 
ther hurtful nor valuable. He hates children, too : says he had 
as lief see the devil. Out upon the wretch ! If ever there was 
a positive manifestation of the divine spirit of God, it is the clear 
eyes and brows of children. Their souls are new, and their af- 
fections as fresh and ductile as a vine in spring. And how they 
bound and glow, with the spirit of existence ! I could hang the 
man — stickler as I am for freedom of opinion — who thinks 
otherwise. If there be anything calculated to make us satisfied 
witli our earthly pilgrimage, it is the love of the young, and the 
scenes of animation which they display. I have never had my 
head examined by a phrenologist ; but it is my belief that the 



70 OLLAPODIANA. 

organ of Interestinthejoysandsorrowsofchildreyiativeness will be 
found there, strongly developed. So much have I thought on 
the subject, that I have a rough draft of metre, alluding thereun- 
to, which ' it is hoped may please.' I have adopted for it a 
plaintive air, now much in vogue in London, among the coster- 
mongers and sweeps, and in which, as in many of the choruses 
extant, there is a large amount of meaning. What a world of 
thought is hidden, for example, in those magic words, ' ai, ai, 
eu — ai, ai, euV in Zurich's Waters! I have seen ladies nod 
their heads over pianos, and look as knowingly when they repeat- 
ed these cabalistic monosyllables, as if they contained explana- 
tions of certain symbols in the Apocalypse. But to the metre. 
Stand a little back. Reader — here it comes : 

THE LIFE OF YOUTH. 

AIR : ' ALL ROUND MY HAT.' 

There is a time when light, and air, and flowers, 

Are shining briglitly whereso'er we tread ; 
When, from the passing of the swift-wing'd hours, 

An atmosphere of love and peace is shed ; 
When hope flits near us, on her angel wings, 
And sweetly to the heart her anthem sings. 

Then pleasant transports overcome the bosom, 
And days in pictured guise go beaming by ; 

A softer breath exhaleth from the blossom — 
A purer radiance gilds the open sky : 

The hues of heaven are poured on every scene — 

On the glad waters, and the fields of green. 

All then is beauty ; from the gay clouds, waving 
Whene'er the breeze their golden skirts may stir, 

To the blue streams their bloomy borders laving — 
The budding orchard, or the vernal fir: 

A look of gladness beams where'er we move, 

And fills the dancing heart with holy love. 

With love for Nature, and for Hni whose power 
Glows in the noontide, or the bhish of morn ; 

Whose smile the waves receive — the tree, the flower — 
The vine's rich tendrils, and the ripening corn ; 

It wakes a Sabbath feeling in the breast — 

A tranquil sense of harmony and rest. 

This is the Life of Youth /—and oh, how fleeting 

The glorious splendors of its morning be ! 
With changeful hues the wildered fancy cheating, 

As moonlight smiles imprint the evening sea; 
While the fair sails sweep onward in their pride, 
O'er treacherous waves that to dim whirlpools glide. 



OLLAPODIANA. 71 

This is the Life of Youth ! Oh, could it linger 

About us ever, as de Leon sought ; 
Nor care, nor sorrow with effacing finger, 

Destroy the magic web by fancy wrought, 
This earth I could not then call stale and flat. 
Nor the dark cypress wreathe ' all round my hat ." 



Reader, I am cut short. I have received intimations (accom- 
panied with expressions of compHmentary and profound regret) 
that the space which I expected to replenish in the present num- 
ber, has been unexpectedly circumscribed by the voluminous- 
ness (unlooked-for) of other matter. Wherefore, until next we 
meet, I say to you, as Wordsworth said to the companion of one 
whom I greatly esteem as an American and a friend — Vive ra- 
lete ! 



NUMBER SEVEN, 

November, 1835. 

One thing is certain. There is an influence in Autumn which 
induces a most oblivious negligence of the time being, which 
transfers us from this ' ignorant present' into the very bowels of 
fairy land. I can scantly take heart-a-grace enough to deglute 
my daily provisions, make a morning call, or do any other thing 
most easy to be done. I could just sit down, and dream of the 
past from morn till dewy eve. Fancies, thicker than the multi- 
tudinous leaves of Vallombrosa, beleague my soul, and I am led 
captive at their will. It is a season — Auturnn is — wherein to 
play the Looker On. 

Pursuant to this predisposition, I was recently enacting Spec- 
tator at a City Election. It is a glorious sight to see the People 
come up in their majesty and exercise their suffrages. How an- 
imated are the streets at night, on such occasions ! Hundreds 
of paper lanthorns gleaming around the polls ; transparencies 
shining from the head-quarters of wards and parties, and glorious 
banners waving their stars and stripes in the gusty sky, over the 
humming multitude. I always feel proud of my country at such 
times. Surely there never was a better system of government 
adopted by man, than ours. Liable to misuse perhaps, but show 
me a nation on earth so essentially free as the American. In 
truth, we are become ' rather too free ;' we make bold to infract 
the laws somewhat too often. But where is the people that do 
not do it more ? 



72 OLLAPODIAXA. 

It must be confessed, though, that elections in the country are 
often burlesque and bombastic to the last degree. Undue im- 
portance is attached to small matters, little characters are stupen- 
dously magnified, and little events elevated into marvels. I have 
before me, for example, a late number of the Logtown Universal 
Advertiser and Entire-Swine Despatch. It presents the details 
of an unimportant inspectors' election, something as follows : 

'VICTORY!— VICTORY!— GLORIOUS VICTORY! 

» We hasten to lay before our numerous readers, and the country at large, 
the thrilling events by which yesterday was signalized in the annals of Log- 
town. The day opened big with the fate of principles and men. As the 
morn advanced, the throngs of golden clouds which shone in the East seem- 
ed to cast a smile of welcome, gorgeous and indescribable, o'er a long line 
of pedestrian voters, some in one-horse wagons, and all of them residing 
near our village, wending to the contest. Heaven looked on with interest 
and expectancy. Proud was the issue, and the result also, as the sequel 
will show. At last, the auspicious time arrived. The contest was begun — 
the onslaught was made. The conclusion was, that the immense eagle of 
victory sits on our banners, a-flopping her wide spread opinions, to the con- 
fusion and dismay of the vile horde of foul and coiTupt miscreants, traitors 
to their country, and GoD-forsaken wretches, who attempted to stop the 
flight of the ahead-going bird. Their hopes are prostrated ! There is 
every certainty that our townsman, John Jones Smith, Jr., Esq., will go to 
the Legislature ; and we can, with swelling bosoms, fearlessly assure the 
nation at large, and the friends of liberty everywhere, that Logtown is re- 
generated, and disenthralled — erect, and sound to the core ! Henceforth let 
her be set down as one of the most Spartan communities on the face of the 
earth. ' Liberty or death ." Mas her war-cry : it prevailed, and she has con- 
quered ! 

* Of course, where such immense interests of a faction were at stake, bad 
passions will have play. We regret to say that several fights occurred, 
while the two parties were counting off. One loathsome ragamuffin, with a 
face black with anger'and dirt, attempted but too successfully to pull the 
nose of our worthy magistrate and fellow-townsman, Plutarch Shaw, while 
in the agreeable and inoffensive act of taking a pint of beer — ' thinking no 
danger, for he had no guilt.' Blood flowed in torrents, but the estimable 
Shaw disdained to retaliate upon his opponent, who repaid his forbearance 
with a remark unparalleled for its ingratitude : namely, that 'Shaw was too 
drunk to lift his fist !' We forbear comment on such atrocious conduct. 
It is sufficient to record the fact — thereby holding up the offender to the 
scorn of the world, Contempt, indeed, is a powerful weapon. We had 
occasion, ourself, to use it yesterday. A miscreant, totally unbeknown to 
us, stopped us by the door of a tavern, where we had made ourself the re- 
cipient of a few oysters, and with his arras akimbo, inquired: ' Are you the 
man as edits the Advertiser and Entire-Swine Despatch ?' We answered 
in the negative, ' yes, that we were.' ' Well,' said the villain, with a look 
of unutterable impudence, ' I am glad I have got a sight of you. I have 
been a-wanting sometime to see the man as I considers the greatest rascal 
and the barefacetest liar in the district!' 

' Our reply was calm and dignified. We answered, by way of response, 
that we were glad he was gratified ; and expressed a hope that, having seen 
what he wished, he would pass on. Our reply created much pleasant laugh- 
ter at the time ; though a few heated partisans of the opposite party at- 



OLLAPODIANA. 78 

tempted to hoot and hiss us. Their malignant souls could not brook our 
magnanimity, and consequent safety of person. Poor, vile, contemptible 
assassins — from the bottom of our heart, how we do despise them! 

'P. S. Since writing the above, we have found reason to believe that the 
wretch who was led to address us by the tavern, was urged on by the up- 
start editor of the Logtown General Observer and Deluge of Reform. "We 
<lo not doubt it. He is a paltry, low, we had almost said nasty, individual, 
and would feel honored by our scorn. Nothing but an insuperable objection 
to low epithets, could prevent us from speaking of this felon and caitiflf as 
he deserves. But we forbear. Argument, not personality, is our battle-axe. 
We leave the conductor of the Deluge to wallow in the rottenness of that 
moral leprosy which has covered him all over as with a garment. He is an 
utmost wretch — a multitudinous puppy — perfectly ostensible in character, 
and venial in deportment, lacking not urbanity merely, but politeness like- 
wise. With these sentiments we leave hira to the vulture-fangs of his own 
filthy conscience. We have treated him tenderly in this instance — but let 
him beware I One more provocation, and we will gibbet him before a dis- 
gusted world, in terms which shall be remembered. Verbal Sap, as Ho- 
mer says — 'a word is a sufficiency ' — and we have done.' 



It was glorious sport for me, in the ' post prandial hours ' of 
my school days, when election time came. The student loves 
the season, for he feels the very spirit of liberty which the elec- 
tions perpetuate and display. It is pleasant to see partisans, af- 
ter election is over, mingling again together in unity and friend- 
ship. Half the speeches in political meetings are spoken for 
effect, and words are used to express ten times more than they 
mean. ' Now, here is a point,' said a young friend of mine, as 
he showed me some loose notes of a ward-meeting address, 
* here's a place where I mean to get up a small lot of indigna- 
tion ; here I will make a touching appeal to patriotism, our fore- 
father's rights in jeopardy, and so forth. There are several fine 
fellows on the opposition ticket ; I have to dine with a couple of 
them to-morrow ; but I shall call them to-night, politically, all 
the varlets, traitors, and rascals, that I can lay my tongue to : 
and so will they me. But we all know what it amounts to — just 
nothing, as far as our social positions are concerned. Do what 
we will, in our self-government, we must be a happy people : 
but I like the excitement.' 



How much by the way, there is in that one word, excitement ! 
Of how many mad pranks and boyish adventures it is the source 
and soul ! I once belonged to a fraternity of students y'clept 
' The Sna/p-Dragon Cluh.'' I was founded by one Harry Wil- 
ford, a harum-scarum youth as ever thumbed Horace, or medi- 
tated deviltries over the eloquent page of Cicero. Beshrew him 
for a mad wag ! The list of the S. D. Society included all the 
clever fellows in the Seminary where it was formed ; and the con- 



74 OLLAPODIANA. 

stitution required that every member should consent to obey the 
commands of the President (in common with the whole corps), 
whatever they might he ! Wilford was President : and truly he 
was a hard one. Sometimes he would issue orders by his Sec- 
retary to the Club, to resort to some rendezvous several miles 
from town, at three o'clock in the morning. No one disobeyed. 
How many times has he selected some cloudy, stormy autumn 
night, and issued his mandate for a convention of the Club, 
without umbrellas, in some open field, a league off, to hear one 
of the members, chosen by himself, sing a song ! It was a cu- 
rious, eccentric band as ever leagued together ; and I cannot re- 
member one instance of infracted orders. We were situated 
somewhere near the centre of Western New York, distant about 
eight miles from the celebrated Cayuga Lake and Bridge ; and 
not one romantic dell, or ridge, or stream, for ten miles round, 
remained unvisited by the Club. The President generally per- 
mitted us to rest in the winter season ; for in that quarter the 
breath of old Hyem is like a blast from the glaciers. What was 
our astonishment, then, on a cold morning in February, 18 — , 
on reading the following Dog-Latin notice in the village news- 
paper : 

'SYMPOSIUM RUMPO-DRACONIS: 

Congregere in Pons Cayuguum, Februarius Sexdecim, nox media, pro 
jocus et exercitatio, et aninii relaxatio. 

1^^ Object. — Elevaiion of the Ancient Henry. 

Hy. Wilford, Presses, 
feb. 15 It.* 
N. B. Preliminary Rendezvous. H. No. 3. R. iMo. 4.' 

This notice — well understood by the initiated — created great 
sensation in the club. We huddled together, after evening 
prayers in the chapel, at Wilford's room in the third Hall, Num- 
ber Four. 

' Gentlemen,' said Harry, ' you are required to-night to do a 
signal and singular duty. The Club must be at Cayuga bridge 
at twelve, precisely. Every member is required to transport 
thither, in his hat, six crackers and one dried herring. The 
pocket of every brother must contain the pecuniary sum of one 
dollar. The design of the convocation is expressed in the 
notice.' 

' But, Mr. President,' said a young member, ' We don't know 
what it means. What does it say we must do ? What are we 
to elevate ?' 

' Sit down, Sir !' said Wilford, imperatively : * your education, 
as a brother of the Snap-Dragons, has been neglected. The 



OLLAPODIANA. 75 

sentence to which you refer, is symbolically, or rather synonymi- 
cally, expressed and put. It means that the object of our meet- 
ing is — to raise the old Harry ! We are going to have a scrape.' - 
The explanation was voted satisfactory, and at the hour of 
nine we sat off, nineteen students, all in a body. Oh, what a 
bitter cold night it was ! Not one of the party reached the ap- 
pointed place without frozen ears and toes. But there was no 
flinching ; every man stood his ground : and at the witching hour 
of midnight, fortified with punch, crackers, and the individual - 
herring, we all stood on the middle of the bridge. Boreas ! 
how the air swept down the lake, over the thick-ribbed ice ! 
Here Wilford addressed us, in beautiful language, of which he 
was a perfect master ; thanked us for our crucifixion of selfish- 
ness for the ends of the Club ; expatiated upon the benefits of 
resolution and perseverance ; and after a quotation of Ossian's 
Address to the Moon, ended with the following : 

' Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky ! 
Thou canst not bite so nigh, 
As benefits forgot ; 
Although thy breath be rude — 
Although the skies thou warp, 
Thou art not half so sharp, 
As man's ingratitude !' 

This quotation was the finale. We reached home somewhere 
in the vicinity of day-break, a weary set of wretches, and crawled 
to our beds, to enjoy the rich luxury of sleep, until the tintin- 
nabulary announcement of nine, from the chapel bell. 

Oh golden days of keen, but objectless adventure ! — when we 
attached importance to every little achievement ; when the snowy 
expanse of landscape shot past us like a dream, from the loaded 
sleigh, or the springing pung ; when there was beauty every 
where, and in every thing ; brown woods, and frozen streams, 
or the big lakes, where we wheeled on glistering heel ! Days 
of excitement, of pride, of tumultuous thoughts, of deep affec- 
tions, of burning ambition — whither have ye flown ! Psha ! 
I am becoming sentimental. 

Well — Harry Wilford after this gave the Club a respite, 
until the next Spring, when a camp-meeting occurred at a place 
about sixteen miles distant from our Seminary. All was bustle 
and confusion in the village ; every body was going, and Harry's 
head conceived a luminous idea. He issued a notice that the 
Club should convene on the camp ground at nine P. M. on Sun- 
day evening. The notice, which was distributed thoroughly 



76 OLLAPODIANA. 

among the members, concluded with the following ominous line : 
' From the President, who will precede the Club, preachings 
from the pulpit, may be expected.' 

Every one was astonished ; expectation was on tiptoe ; but 
mum was the word. Measures were adopted for the procurement 
of a conveyance, but not one was to be had in the town. At 
last an old fellow, who brought turnips and cabbages to market, 
and lived a mile or two from the village, was prevailed upon to 
oblige us for a liberal compensation, with his cart, two venerable 
mares, and a couple of unbroken colts. These were brought 
together in double tandem, the maternal cattle acting as leaders. 
We started at the sunset of a beautiful day ; but Phoebus and 
Phaeton ! what a figure we cut ! The old turnip-cart creaked 
like a gibbet ; and though the colts were well enough, yet their 
parental precedents might have reminded one of the animals 
mentioned by the quaint old Peter Heylin, in his ' Compleate 
Uoyauge thorough -France :' ' As lean were they as Envie is in 
the Poet — macies in corpora tota being most true of them. 
Neither were they not only lean enough to have their ribbes num- 
bred, but the vqry spurs had made such casements thorough their 
skinnes, that it had been no great dificultie for to have surveyed 
their entrails. A straunge kynde of catel in mine opinion, and 
such as had neither flesh on their bones, nor skinne on their flesh, 
nor hair on their skinne. All the neighing we cold heare from 
the proudest of them w^as onely an old dry cougph, which I 'le 
assure you did much comfort me ; for by that noise I first learned 
there was life in them.' 

We reached the camp-ground in due time, fagged and jaded. 
But the excitement of the scene put all our weariness to flight. 
When we entered the hedged area in the wilderness, and saw 
the assembled thousands in a waving mass beneath the torch- 
disclosed foliage of innumerous boughs, we could scarcely con- 
tain ourselves for admiration. As we were entering, we caught 
a glimpse of Harry Wilford. He was presenting a letter to a 
clergyman in a corner of the camp-ground. We were marvel- 
ling what that could mean, when singing commenced. How 
sweetly it fell on my ear ! Every leaf that trembled to the 
breeze, seemed instinct with holy melody. There is nothing so 
heavenly and subduing, as the full-volumed gush of harmony 
which rises like incense from the lips of a primitive, sensitive 
congregation, chanting ' with spirit and understanding,' in God's 
first temple, the solemn forest. I felt overpowered. 

After singing, there was a prayer ; and then a solemn-visaged 
man of God arose to announce that a young brother, in full 



OLLAPODIAXA. 77 

Standing in a distant Conference, had been warmly introduced to 
him by letter, and would deliver. his message. 'Brother Wil- 
kins,' he said, ' I leave this flock in the wilderness to receive the 
manna of your ministrations.' 

The young brother arose. It was Harry Wilford! His 
mouth was pursed up with an aspect like the aperture of a 
lady's reticule ; his profusion of glowing brown locks had been 
tallowed down over his handsome forehead, with a most demure 
expression, and those mischievous eyes of his were chastened to 
a glance of peculiar sobriety. A benignant smile played about 
his finely-chiselled mouth, so faint, indeed, that it scarcely seemed 
a smile ; and he had begirt himself in a coat ' of formal cut,' wuth 
a ' stand-up' collar, which, as I discovered at a glance, belonged 
to a lank, ungainly fellow who swept the halls of our little col- 
lege, and rejoiced in the soicbriquet, ' Professor of Dust and Ashes.' 

I caught Wilford's eye twice, before he began his exhorta- 
tion ; and there was a lurking deviltry in the expression, as if it 
said : ' Keep your gaze on me, boys ; I 'm doing well ; don't 
disconcert me.' 

He selected his text from Acts xxvi. 29 : ' And Paul said, I 
would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this 
day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these 
bonds ;' and never did I hear a more eloquent sermon. He ran 
rapidly through the history of Paul ; he touched with impas- 
sioned fervor upon the lofty spirit with which he went bound in 
the spirit unto Jerusalem, and gave with pathetic enthusiasm, the 
outline picture of his arraignment before Festus. ' Mark, my 
beloved brethren and sisters,' said he, ' the powerful contrast be- 
tween the pride of sin, and the unadorned glory of the Chris- 
tian ! Behold the meek Apostle, standing before the imperial 
Festus and Agrippa, who with Bernice his wife had come with 
great pomp, accompanied by the chief captains and principal men 
of the city — brought forth by commandment — hindered with 
bonds, before princes and potentates, in gold and purple ! He 
lifts up his voice ; the trembling spirit-tones ring through the vast 
apartment where he stands ; they thunder at the door of every 
heart ; they bring the deluge of sensibility to many a cheek. 
The warm lip of woman quivers ; her bright orbs grow dim with 
emotion ; the silvered head sinks thoughtfully upon the breast of 
age ; a Sabbath holiness lingers around ; and as the travel-worn 
apostle speaketh on, the bosoms that surround him, thrill to the 
movement of his tongue. As he proceeds, he kindles ; he seems 
to rise above the wall of dust that circumscribes his spirit ; his 
corruption seems to put on incorruption ; his mortal form seems 



78 OLLAPODIANA. 

to expand into the bright dimensions of immortahty. The voice 
of inspiration trembles around ; the words of grace fall like good 
seed, broad-cast among the multitude ; and as the prisoner in his 
bonds pleads the cause of love, and truth, and God, the agitated 
Festus, shrinking from the tremendous energy of his eloquence, 
exclaims, ' Thou art beside thyself P But with what firm benev- 
olence and kindly meekness is his insult answered ! How calmly 
is it denied ! And with what yearning tenderness does the Pil- 
grim and Soldier of the Cross invoke for his judge all the bles- 
sings that filled his own soul — ' except his bonds !' Wondrous 
benignity — fond outpouring of a spirit rapt and overflowing with 
the fulness of God ! Who would not rather journey with the 
saint in his pilgrim-sandals from prison to prison, from peril to 
peril, from stripes to shipwreck, than to dwell in the tents of sin- 
ful magnificence, or abide in the ephemeral tabernacles of lux- 
ury — to wield the sceptre of kings, or hold the reins of empires !' 
Here Wilford's cheek flushed, and his eye sparkled with enthu- 
siasm. He saw by the uplifted hands, he heard by the groans 
and shouts around him, that his discourse was taking effect, and 
like an actor, excited with applause, he swept onward in his 
speech : ' Oh, 7ny friends ! let not his great example be lost upon 
you. Follow in his footsteps ; walk even as he walked ; deny- 
ing ungodliness, and crucifying the flesh, with its affections and 
lusts ; so that at the last, ye may shine in ga-loh-rah ! Mark 
what I tell ye ! I may be unworthy ; your preacher may be sin- 
ful, ignorant, and imperfect ; but ye must be watchful, prayerful, 
and steadfast : then shall ye shine at the last as the stars in the 
firmament, for ever and ever. Then, when the sun himself shall 
grow dim with years ; when his yellow hair shall no longer float 
on the Eastern mountains, or his golden banners tremble at the 
gates of the West ; when the ocean shrinks to its final ebb, and 
the mountains themselves decay with age, then shall ye stray 
amid the blissful fields of Paradise, enjoying pinultimately — mind 
I say pi-nultimately — those raptures of which, in this dull vale 
of misery, we have nor sign nor symbol.' 

Here Wilford lowered his voice, and ended his discourse with 
a beautiful allusion to the scene around him. He was skilled in 
camp-meeting psalmody, and with his sweet voice 'raised' a 
tune, and led the singers in a hymn whose simple melody yet 
haunts my ear. 

When the hymn was finished, it was followed by an ' exhor- 
tation' from some Western Brother, who had strayed into the 
Conference on a mission for supplies. His address was the 
strangest compound of pathos and bathos that I have ever heard. 



>• 
OLLAPODIANA. 79 

Wilford, while he spoke, sat on the seat behind him, and I ob- 
served that it was with the utmost difficulty he could keep his 
countenance. The Preacher discussed the text of the good 
Samaritan, illustrating therefrom the great benefits of kindness 
and charity. But his discourse had no more connection with the 
text, than it had with the science of algebra. He talked of 
everij thing — and oh, Santa Maria! what grammar he did use, 
to be sure! ' Them kind of characters,' said he — speaking of 
the selfish and avaricious — ' is not fit for to live, nor for to die. 
They hasn't no bowels, no more than a statute. Poor deluded 
souls ! they go through the world, without doing no good to no- 
body ; and wi;ien they die, they go to their own place. Hence 
we view, that when the final judgment comes, they will meet with 
dreadful punishments. How awful will be that there scene ! 
Then, all at onst, they will obsarve the heavens a-darkening, the 
seas a-roaring, the tombs a-bustin', the mountains a-melting, and 
the cattle and sheep straddling about to keep their places !' 

He went on in this strain, until his voice became thick and 
husky, and he complained that ' his lungs was a-givin' in.' Here 
his tones sunk to a low and plaintive pitch ; and he closed with 
sentences that fell like music upon my ear, and brought a flood 
of tears to my eyes. He spoke of the dangers that had beset 
him in the far West ; and of the benignity of that Power which 
had sustained him through everj trial. ' Often,' he said, ' h&w 
often, have I swum my horse across midnight rivers, carrying 
the glad tidings of salvation to settlements in the wilderness, when 
the fearful cry of wolves rung in my ear, and the watch-fires of 
the hostile Indians blazed beneath the giant pines ! How often 
have I wandered through the tall grass of the Prairies, day after 
day, with my over-coat for my evening pillow, and the star-gem- 
med vault of heaven for the curtains of my rest ! I was sad, 
but I was comforted ; I was thirsty, but my spirit had refresh- 
ment ; I was weary, but the arm of Omnipotence sustained my 
fainting footsteps, and I laid my head upon the bosom of peace. 
I was far from man — in silence — alone ; yet not alone, for my 
God was with me !' 

Words could not describe the thrilling effect of this simple yet 
sublime conclusion. It banished completely from my mind the 
preceding absurdities of imagery in which the preacher had in- 
dulged, and left me filled with emotion. I did not mean to be 
impious, as I made the observation, but I did not reflect that it 
might apply to both ends of his sermon, when I said, as I de- 
parted with my fellow Snap-Dragons, ' Never man spake like 
this man.' 



80 OLLAPODIANA. 

About an hour after the conclusion of his maiden sermon, 
Wilford met the club, entire, as agreed upon, ' at the Jirst tavern 
from the ground.' He had on an enormous pair of false whis- 
kers ; his hair was brushed up in his usual free, airy style ; his 
coat had been changed, and his hat placed jauntily on one side. 
I never saw a fellow so full of spirit. We had a fine supper, 
and Harry staid longer than all. When I left, he was saying to 
the landlord: 'Come, show your charge for the company; 
v/hat 's to pay ? Bring in your bill, as the honey-suckle said to 
the humming-bird.' 

Poor Harry ! His mad-cap career, as a mad-cap, was short. 
He is now a devoted missionary of the church, at a far western sta- 
tion ; and I recendy heard an old lady who knows him there, say 
that ' A piouser creeter, nor a devouter, never was seen, nowhere !' 



Talking of old women, makes me think of young ones. I 
see by an article in one of the late English magazines, that the 
palm of superior beauty is frankly awarded to the ladies of the 
United States. This is just. Who can walk through the streets 
of any of our principal cities — New- York or Philadelphia for 
instance — never forgetting Baltimore — without being struck and 
smitteri with the rare loveliness of the damsels therein ? It is 
like walking through a splendid gallery of animated pictures. 
How many fairy forms, and ' wreathed smiles,' and dove-like 
eyes ! I care not if the observer of these be an elder brother of 
Methusalem — he must be moved — he must admire : for 

' V/ho can curiously behold 



The smoothness and the sheen of Beauty's cheek, 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ?' 

But there is a pestilent pack of fellows in New- York, who are 
potent wine-bibbers and fortune-hunters, that spend their days 
and nights in scotmdrelizing, to use a term of their own. A 
member of this clan will pay his devoirs to a lady, giving her 
every reason to believe that he is serious in his intentions, and 
overflowing with affection, when he is only worming from her a 
few secrets respecting her goods and chattels, present and pros- 
pective. These varlets have a cabalistic language of their own, 
of which I will endeavor to give the reader an idea. I overheard 
a pair of them conversing not long ago in Broadway, and having 
previously acquired the key to their dialect, I understood it 
perfectly. 

' Well, Bob,' said one, ' were you at Miss 's soiree last 

night ? It was expected to be superb.' 



OLLAPODIANA. 81 

' Yes, I was, Tom ; but my good fellow, it was scarce an ob- 
ject. It was hardly worth the perfume that I unctuated my 
whiskers withal. There were several sweet, virtuous young 
ladies there ; modest, exemplary, lovely. But they were some 
engaged, and the rest were ' minus the brads' — paupers, all.' 

' But Miss Van Blank was there, wasn't she '? If so, I say 
there was Heaven. Which way she turns is paradise, and her 
smile would improve the sunshine in Eden. There is retiring, 
bashful, rose-like loveliness for you.' 

' Granted, Tom — she was there — and all you say is true : 
but my dear boy, she has no moral character. Her reputation 
is bad. Now who do you think was the very nucleus of the 

company ? Why, that rich and ugly Miss . They say she 

is improving, every year, and egad, I think so. She has per- 
sons enough in her employ, amending her face and frame, to 
beautify the Witch of Endor. Look at her hand ; why it is as 
large as the hand of Providence. She has got a better smile 
than she was wont to have — and ITcnow who sold it to her ! I 
saw that same smile last year, in a glass case, at- the exhibition of 
the American Institute. It cost her money — and really it has 
done execution. That great walking porker, Frank Rumminson, 
has asked her hand, and won it, and nobody knows it. The money- 
hunters flock around her, as the fish do round a fly. Frank will 
have a great prize with her ; but the worst of it is, she is immortal. 
I beheve she must have descended from the Wandering Jew; and 
I '11 wager a dozen of champaigne that she will live till dooms- 
day, and be the first to hear the angel Gabriel give his solo obli- 
gato on the trumpet.' 

' Hush, Bob — you are getting blasphemous. This won't do. 
Who else was there ?' 

' Why Miss , the younger. You know she was thought 

quite rich, and the fellows scoundrelized about her very exten- 
sively, until they found their error, when they retired in shoals. 
I asked one of them last night what had become of her property. 
' Ah !' said he, ' my fine boy, we were misinformed. She has 
no property to become o/*.' 

Thus they went on ; but I must explain their lingo. When 
these varlets wish to inquire among themselves respecting a lady's 
fortune, they interrogate under the synonym of an inquiry as to 
her moral character. If affluent, it is ' excellent ;' if middling, 
she ' has a fair reputation ;' if without any funds they call her 
' perfectly abandoned, with no character at all.' So they go ; 
playing evermore the same mercenary and scoundrel game. Out 
upon them ! They ought to be hanged, and then be pulled by the 

6 



82 OLLAPODIANA. 

nose. The damsel of whom the young partyzan spoke, with all 
her plainness, is deluged with compliments and love-letters. As 
Frank Rumminson is the elect, she burns most of these scrawls 
without reading. 

By the by, how much tact and genius it requires to write a 
good love-letter. Most persons are ill at these amorous scrip- 
tures. I encountered one the other day, in an ancient tome, 
(the Extravagaunt Shepherd), that pleased me mightily. Here it 
runs : 

' Mt Dearest Deer : 

' SiTHENCE that love, which is the lightest bird in the world, hath 
nestled in my bosom, it hath proved so full of egg, that I have been forced 
to suffer him to lay there. But sithence he hath laid it, he hath sate upon 
it a long tyme, and at length hath hatched this little pullet which I now 
send you. The breeding of it will cost you httle ; all the food it will re- 
quire will be caresses and kisses. And withal, it is so well taught that it 
speaks better than a paraqueto, and so will tell you my sufferings for you. 
It hath in charge to inquire of you whether or no you are yet displeased 
with me, and to let me know your mind, not by a pullet so big as this, but 
by the least chicken you please, if I may have your favor ; with this promise, 
that if you have laid aside your rigor, 1 shall send you no more pullets, but 
present you with full-grown birds, full of valor and affection. Lysis. 

' Flowers,' saith Shakspeare, ' are love's charactery ;' and I 
dare be sworn he never thought that passion, or the record which 
confessed it, could be symbolized by so famihar a fowl as a pullet. 
However, Miss L an don declares that ' Love is full of phanta- 
sies,' and the billet doux of the Extravagant Shepherd prove it. 
If the nestling fowl was kind, it is probable that Lysis very soon 
engendered barn-door birds enough to stock an aviary. Doubt- 
less the pastoral youth could have said, with Godfrey of Bul- 



loigne 



'Ah, cruel Love, that slayeth us equally. 
Where worm-wood thou or honey do dispence; 
And equal deadly at all seasons be 
Mischieves and medicines that proceed of thee.' 



I HAVE been looking for several evenings with great earnestness 
at the comet. Whether I have seen farther into it than my con- 
temporaries, I can not tell. I have observed enough, however, 
to convince me that this Stranger in our sky is a very ' eccentric 
character. It wanders about ad libitum — shedding the light of 
its countenance wherever it listeth — free and independent — the 
Democrat of the air. ' Success to its wand'rings, where'er it 
may go !' 

Many sensible things have been said of comets. Old Died- 



OLLAPODIAXA. 8S 

RICH Knickerbocker — heaven rest his soul! — expressed his 
fears, on the ijjsc dixit of certain philosophers — and his modest 
pen blushed while he did so — that the comet would one day 
* turn tail upon the earth, and deluge it with water.' But that 
was founded on a false hypothesis. It is cheering to believe that 
a better destiny awaits it. 

Levity aside ; is it not a grand and vast conception, that this 
wan and misty orb has been travelling swifter than the swiftest 
cannon-ball, through the dim realms of space, since our Saviour 
slept in the manger at Bethlehem, and the Star in the East lit its 
fires for the Wise Men's eyes? Is it not like Divinity, that 
power of Astronomic prophecy, which pierced the curtains of 
the future, and foretold the advent of this blazing world ? Looks 
it not like sharing attributes with Omnipotence, and 'circumvent- 
ing God V And when this generation shall be slumbering in the 
dust, that predicted orb will again stream its ' horrid hair' across 
our sky. When the lover who has now looked at it with his 
mistress shall become a patriarch among his children ; when the 
child now lisping its early inquiries of the wandering star, shall 
tell the tale in after years, to some grand-babe throned on her 
knee — then the comet will come again !^ What changes, what 
revolutions, what convulsions of states and empires, will chance 
ere then ! My soul expands into a sense of sublimity, as I re- 
flect on the vast world of events between. How many ties will 
be severed — how many hearts be broken — how many tears be 
shed ! Yet while on earth these vicissitudes will advene and 
vanish, in that far element above and around us this luminous 
globe shall wander with its train, flashing and glowing through the 
fields of immensity. Thought itself — Imagination in her boldest 
flight — sinks with wearied wing, unable to grasp the stupendous, 
boundless theme ! Truly said the ancient minstrel ; ' When I 
survey the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the 
stars which thou hast ordained, then I say, what is man that thou 
art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him ?' 

What a pity it is, that we have no great telescopes in our 
country, to survey the skies withal. There was, during the last 
winter and spring, a locomotive astronomer — doubtless of Yan- 
kee extraction — who paraded of evenings about the streets of 
Philadelphia, with a large glass stationed on a frame. He sold 
small parcels of astronomy, at sixpence a-piece. I bought three 
shillings worth of him in the course of the season. He was door- 
keeper to the heavenly bodies ; and had all the realm of sky — 
Airshire — as his own. I got the worth of my outlay every time. 
I saw Jupiter, Saturn, the Rings, and the revolving satellites, all 



84 OLLAPODIANA. 

for 2ijipennxjhit. I shall never cease to thank this surveyor of 
celestial lots for the glimpes of heaven that he gave me. I form- 
ed, while looking through his immense le7ises, some idea of the 
svv^iftness, the tremendous energy, with which this earth revolves 
on her axis. The old alma mate?- has in truth a restless time of 
it. Notwithstanding the immense distance of the stars observed, 
the glass, resting on the solid earth, would glide by them in a 
moment. The eternal dance of planets went on, each sphere 
rolling in its own atmosphere, with worlds on countless worlds 
beyond ; surrounded with infinity, and making melody to God ! 
I care not how I come by such thoughts as these, but it is 
very queer to see a person peddling sublimity by the glimpse, 
and snacks of astronomy at so much the squint, or, as it were, by 
the quintal. Nobody but a member of the Universal Yankee 
Nation would have conceived this stellar enterprise. 'Di?iumeras 
Stellas, si poles,'' was said of old : and I will wager my opera-glass, 
that some ingenious American will take, ere long, an ethereal 
census. Mr. Clayton, with his thirty-passenger balloon, is des- 
tined to put out the first celestial feeler in the business. By St. 
Paul ! we can do anything in this country. I believe, with a 
lamented friend, if Mount jEtna were sold to an American Stock 
Company, that money could be evoked from the transaction : 
' Enceladus would be made to roar by contract, and the natural 
fire-works be exhibited for a consideration !' 



How pleasant is a lovely thing, a little out of season ! Just 
now a humming-bird came fluttering about a iew dahlias that are 
blushing in my window, through the yellow sunshine of this 
warm October day. He lingered for a moment, ' like atom of 
the rainbow, glittering round,' and then balanced his beautiful 
pinions for flight. His tiny form is just fading, in the direction 
where the many-colored foliage of Washington Square is twink- 
ling to the breeze : 

Thou fairy bird, whose golden wing 

Mounts on the west wind's stealing sigh: 

For thee the flowers profusely fling 
Their last aroma through the sky 

Go on rejoicing ; but take heed that thy flight be not in the win- 
ter. Ours is a changeful climate. Master Cobweb. 

This incident has revived in my mind three perfect stanzas, 
from a pen once wielded by a hand now mouldering in the grave. 
Nothing can be sweeter or purer. They breathe the very phi- 
losophy of Faith, and soul of Song. The strain was suggested 
to the author on seeing a butterfly resting on a skull. 



OLLAPODIANA. 

Creature of air and light ! 
Emblem of that which may not fade or die; 

Wilt thou not speed thy flight, 
To chase the south wind through the glowing sky ? 

What lures thee thus to stay 

With silence and decay, 
Fix'd on the wreck of cold mortality ? 

The thoughts once chambered there, 
Have gathered up their treasures, and are gone ; 

Will the dust tell us where 
They that have burst their prison-house have flown ? 

Rise, nursling of the day, 

If thou wouldst trace their way — 
Earth hath no voice to make the secret known. 

Who seeks the vanished bird. 
By the forsaken nest and broken shell ? 

Far hence he sings unheard, 
Yet free and joyous, mid the woods to dwell ! 

Thou of the sunshine born. 

Take the bright wings of morn ! 
Thy hopes call heavenward from yon gloomy cell. 

' No more at present,' dear Reader, from your faithful 

Ollapod. 



85 



NUMBER EIGHT. 

December, 1835. 

That was a good inscription which Byron desired should be 
recorded on his monument — ' Implora paceP Delicious peace ! 
I love thee as I do sleep. Thou insensible Dove, that waftest 
upon thy soft and fragrant pinion the odors from the gardens of 
the Hesperides, and Islands of the Blest ! I love thee for the rich 
reveries in which my soul is steeped when thou art nigh ; whether 
thou comest in gusty Autumn, in the solemn stillness of a starry 
winter's night, in the glow of Summer, or the balm-breathing 
loveliness of Spring. It is only the idea of its peace, which 
reconciles us to the grave. When the hurly-burly of life is over, 
it is sweet to believe that there is rest in the tomb. The heart 
shrinks indeed from its breathless, pulseless, and ' cold obstruc- 
tion ;' but there is comfort to the care-worn bosom in the thought 
of its repose. When the ' fitful fever' of earth has frenzied heart 
and brain ; when the sad breast is surcharged with groans and 
sighs ; it is not melancholy to believe in the rest of the grave. 
When bitter images take possession of the mind ; when friends 



86 OI.LAPODIA]\A. 

are faithless, and love inconstant — then the wearied one sighs for 
tranquility, and saith with Otway : 

'Oh, for a long, long sleep, and so forget it !' 

Thus Socrates reasoned, it may be, when he raised to his lips the 
chalice of oblivion, and quaffed his deadly hemlock. 



I HAVE thought on this wise, from reading the numerous in- 
stances of suicide that have occurred in our country within the 
year. But alas ! the majority of the cases were perpetrated by 
those to whom even death itself could afford neither refuge nor 
remedy ; to whom eternity could have seemed in prospect but a 
perpetuity of horror ; and with whom the thought of futurity was 
but the-prolonging of guilty principles and ever-during remorse, 
those dark and gloomy curtains that invest forever the chambers 
of the soul. 

It is worth observing, that the majority of suicides occur 
among men. Indeed, when I inspect the annals of crime, I have 
no great partiality for my own sex. Who fill our prisons ? Men. 
Who throng our criminal courts, to receive the public smitings 
that fall from the arm of Justice ? Principally men. Who is it 
that may be said to grow sick the oftenest of life, and so rush 
into the world of spirits ? Mostly men. Who are uncompunc- 
tious in pulling the fatal trigger, or assaulting the jugular with 
shining steel? Men — men ! Can any one deny this ? I trow 
not. There is a reason for it, too. Woman, in her worst estate, 
is purer than man in his worst. Sensibilities, which are worn 
away among men, in their intercourse with the world, linger and 
play about her heart, even when the fountain of virtue in her 
bosom has been turned to bitter and polluted waters. The lin- 
gering principle of human affection sometimes warms her cheek 
and bedews her eye, even when the holiness of rectitude has be- 
come a forgotten quality, and a hateful thing. The divinity 
within — the earhest gift of Heaven — continues to reflect itself 
upon the face from the soul, until at last the faint image of good- 
ness becomes imperceptible ; and the brazen front of shameless 
vice has lost the beauty of its morning, and the image of its God. 

The crimes of women, when they do commit crime, arise 
from some tender source at first, which gradually hardens into 
desperate wickedness. It is long before she surrenders herself 
to the suggestions of vice : 

' But when she falls, she falls like Lucifer, 
Never to rise again.' 



OLLAPODIANA. 87 

The true being and end of womankind is love ; and from this, 
if I may so speak, all their sorrows, if they pervert that holy and 
heavenly passion, directly proceed. I reverence the principle of 
love in woman. It seems, indeed, the atmosphere in which she 
lives, and moves, and has her being. The arms and wings of 
her spirit seem ever reaching and panting to clasp to her bosom, 
and brood over, some object of human affection. In the smile of 
her lip, in the glance of her eye, in the soft and bewildering 
melody of her voice, we find but the semblances and echoes of 
the Spirit of Love. She delights to minister to our comfort ; to 
invest our pathway with the roses of delicate enjoyment ; to lend 
sunshine to the hearth, and repose to the evening hour. I have 
never thought upon the gentle and unobtrusive influence of wo- 
man, without feelings of the deepest admiration. She seldom 
hates. When she is wronged, she is forgiving ; when destroyed, 
she still turns with an eye of earnest regret to that paradise of 
innocence from which her passions have driven her ; and in soli- 
tude, by day or at evening, ' she waters her cheek in tears with- 
out measure.' 

In woman, all that is sacred and lovely seems to meet, as in 
it5 natural centre. Do we look for self-denial ? See the devoted 
wife. For resolute affection, struggling through countless trials? 
Behold the lover. For that overflowing fulness of fond idolatry 
which gives to things of earth a devotion like that which should 
ascend to God ? Behold the mother, at the cradle of her infant, 
or pillowing its drowsy eyelid on her bosom ; supremely blest to 
see its fair cheek rise and fall upon the white and heaving orb, 
where it finds nourishment and rest ! TJds is woman ; always 
loving ; always beloved. Well may the poet strike his lyre in 
her praise ; well may the warrior rush to the battle-field for her 
smile ; well may the student trim his lamp to kindle her passion- 
ate heart, or warm her dainty imagination : she deserves them 
all. Last at the cross and earliest at the grave of the Saviour, 
she teaches to those who have lived since His sufferings, the 
inestimable virtue of constant affection. I love to see her by the 
couch of sickness ; sustaining the fainting head ; offering to the 
parched lip its cordial, to the craving palate its simple nour- 
ishment ; treading with noiseless assiduity around the solemn 
curtains, and complying with the wish of the invalid when he 
says : 

' Let me not have this sloomy view 
About my room, about my bed; 
But blooming roses, wet with dew, 
To cool my burning brow instead :' 



88 OLLAPODIANA. 

disposing the sunlight upon the pale forehead, bathing the hair 
with ointments, and letting in upon it from the summer casement 
the sweet breath of Heaven ! How lovely are such exhibitions 
of ever-during constancy and faith! — how they appeal to the 
soul ! — like the lover in the Canticles, whose fingers, when she 
rose to open the door to her beloved, dropped ' with sweet smel- 
ling myrrh upon the handles of the lock !' No man of sensi- 
bility, I take it, after battling with the perplexities of the out-door 
world, but retires with a feeling of refreshment to his happy fire- 
side : he hears with joy the lisp of the cherub urchin that climbs 
upon his knee, to tell him some wonderful tale about nothing, or 
feels with delight the soft breath of some young daughter, whose 
downy, peach-like cheek is glowing close to his own. I am 
neither a husband nor a father ; but I can easily fancy the feel- 
ing of supreme pleasure which either must experience. Let us 
survey the world of business : what go we ' out for to see ?' 
The reed of ambition, shaken by the breath of the multitude ; 
cold-hearted traders and brokers, traffickers and overreachers, 
anxious each to circumvent his fellow, and turn to his own purse 
the golden tide in which all would dabble. Look at the homes 
of most of these. There the wife waits for her husband ; and 
while she feels that anxiety for his presence which may be called 
the hunger of the heart, she feeds her spirit with the memory 
of his smile ; or perhaps looks with fondness upon the pledges 
of his affection, as they stand like olive-branches round about 
his table. 

Reader, on my honor I do not wish to be prosy ; and as I 
have no one to advertise me on that point, I must trust my own 
judgment. Ollapod sometimes elongates a subsection ; but he 
shortens others. So I must e'en discourse more upon this theme 
of woman ; for I have some events which I wish to interweave 
herein ; events that cast no particular credit upon the scurvy 
gender to which I belong. 

I say all this in behalf of woman, however, with a mental 
reservation, which I will promulge anon. At present, I leave 
essay for narrative. 

A FEW days ago, as I was taking my accustomed morning's 
walk, in a mild October morning, in the suburbs of the city 
whereof I am a denizen, I found myself, on a sudden, in the 
open country. The melancholy landscapes of Autumn stretched 
around ; and the bright hues which had characterized the season 
were beginning to disappear. Nothing disturbed my meditations, 
except the passage of some early market man or woman, hieing 



OLLAPODIANA. 89 

with their Httle world of cares and hens to the mart of the town. 
I wandered unconsciously onward, until I discovered that I was, 
as it were, in the midst of a crowd, fronting a low, time-worn 
tenement. A few vehicles were drawn up around it. and seeing 
a medical friend whom I knew, I inquired the cause of the 
assembly. He informed me that a young girl had committed 
suicide, and was then lying dead in an upper apartment. Moved 
with sorrowful curiosity, I complied with his request to enter. In 
one apartment were several females, in tears and distress ; in 
another, the witnesses, and members of the coroner's jury. As- 
cending a staircase, I found myself in the presence of the Dead ; 
of One, who, before the first dark day of nothingness had swept 
the lines of beauty from her features, was lying on a pallet of 
straw, pale in dissolution. The sight was mournful and solemn. 
Her face had lingering about it all the features of beauty : its 
ensign was still floating above the voiceless lip, and the deep- 
sealed eye. Heavy masses of rich auburn hair lay in waves on 
eacli side of her snowy temples ; a faint hue lingered about the 
cheeks ; but the foamy and purple lips indicated how violent 
was the death she had died. By the bed-side lay a half-eaten 
apple, and a large rhomboid of corrosive sublimate. Particles 
of this deadly poison were still upon the fruit. Thus the life- 
weary taker had ended her days. I looked out upon the gloomy 
waste of country over which she had gazed her last, at twilight, 
the evening before, and tried to realize what must have been the 
depth of agony which possessed her spirit then. How must her 
bruised heart have throbbed with misery ! — how dark must have 
been her soul! — like that of the Medea of Euripides, when she 
prepared the deadly garments for her rival, and dedicated to 
death the children of her womb. Thoughts of the cause now 
agitated my mind. She had confided, and been betrayed. Cru 
elty and abuse had been her lot ; but amidst all she had been 
constant and devoted. Her hands were clasped as if in prayer ; 
and the potent poison had overcome her system ere she could 
disunite them. 

There are moments when the mysteries of eternity throng so 
rapidly upon our imagination, that we live years of contempla- 
tion in their little round. This was the case with me. There 
lay the prostrate form of one whose only crime had been, that 
she had loved, not wisely, but too well ; one who, stung to the 
heart by the destroyer of her peace, had determined to lay down 
her aching head and sorrowful bosom in the rest of the grave. 

As I stood gazing at the lifeless object before me — interrupted 
only by the pitying ejaculations of the few that were present, or 



90 OLLAPODIANA. 

the sobs of those who were below — I was requested by the sur- 
geon in attendance, as a personal favor, to go in his private car- 
riage to the house of the father of the deceased, and apprize him 
of the fatal occurrence, of which he was still ignorant. Receiv- 
ing my directions, I went. I drove up to a handsome dwelling 
in a distant street, and was ushered by a servant into a beautiful 
drawing-room, where a glowing fire was burning in the grate. 
Every thing around betokened ease and plenty, if not opulence. 
The folding-doors of the parlor soon opened, and the warm air 
from an adjoining elegant apartment came in from another fire. 

The father stood before me. He was a respectable looking 
person, but bore about him the marks of violent passions, and an 
indomitable will. 

It was by slow and painful degrees that I communicated to him 
the horrid death of his child. When I had unburthened my mind 
and heart, he seemed to stand like a statue of marble for a mo- 
ment ; then, sinking upon an ottoman, he gave way to the agony 
of his soul. His chest heaved with his deep-drawn sighs, his lip 
faltered, and tears, stern tears, ' like the first drops of a thunder- 
shower,' came to his eye. 

I saw him stand, a few moments after, by the corpse of his 
daughter. Words cannot describe the scene. 



The history of her sorrows and fate may be briefly told. Her 
father had emigrated, with a lovely and engaging wife, from a 
foreign country. She was their first-born ; beloved — idolized. 
When brothers and sisters were growing up with and around her, 
she was the favored of them all. 

At last, her mother died. She was just budding into woman- 
hood, when this sad event took place. After the funeral rites, 
she found that she was destined to fill her mother's place, so far 
as the guardianship and care of her young brothers and sisters 
were concerned. She knew the stern disposition and headstrong 
passions of her parent, and she strove to the utmost to meet his 
wishes and oblige his will. Soon, however, his demeanor began 
to change. He insisted that she was unable to perform the du- 
ties required, and a house-keeper was procured — one, it seems, 
not dissimilar to the celebrated Original mentioned by Byron. 
She was overbearing and vulgar. By degrees, the daughter 
perceived too surely, that her mother's place was filled to the ut- 
most, in all its relations, by a dishonest and unholy woman. 
She suffered in silence ; she blushed at her own degradation, 
through the recklessness of her parent, but she breathed not a 
word. At last her silence was imputed to insubordinate anger ; 



O L L A P O D I A N A . flfl 

she was pronounced incorrigible, and driven from her father's 
house — a7i outcast. 

Hitherto she had been worthy and innocent. But evil exam'- 
ples, and a just filial anger, fired her soul. She sought the house 
of a friend, a close intimate of her mother's, where she hved as 
an assistant in the lighter and more elegant duties of a house- 
hold. By degrees, her beauty attracted the attention of a youth, 
tlie son of her protectress. She loved ; she was beset with 
solemn vows, and an unbroken train of temptations ; until, finally, 
she was betrayed ; and unable to battle against her own remorse, 
and the thousand shames that rained on her defenceless head, 
she sought the drug and the grave ! 



Now that for which I do somewhat abate my admiration ol 
women, is this. They condemn all derelictions from duty, with- 
out discrimination. In a case like the present, they make no 
distinction ; they see the bruised heart sink into the dust, with 
scarce an expression of regret, and hear the report that a sister 
spirit has rushed, unanointed and unannealed, into the presence 
of its God, without one throb of pity. Why this inexorable 
judgment ? Why this absence of extenuating reasons ? Why 
is it, with them, that 

' Every wo a tear can claim. 
Except an erring sister's shame ?' 

I pretend not to tell ; but if their opinions are severe, what 
shall be said of those fiends in human form, who poison the foun- 
tains of virtue in the innocent bosom ; whose lips breathe the 
black lie, and the broken vow ? Is there a punishment too great 
to be inflicted upon the villain who approaches the fair fabric of 
virtue only to leave it in ruin and desolation ? Is hell too much ? 
No ! To repay the love which one has himself awakened with 
disgrace and scorn ; to drive the spirit one has polluted, into the 
presence of that, Creator from whom it came bright and unsul- 
lied ; what guilt can be greater, in all the annals of crime ? 

My heart burns with indignation, as I dwell on the theme. 
How many a very wretch, among the youth of our cities, is dash- 
ing in the beau monde, whose true place is the penitentiary ; 
whose only relief from its walls, is the prodigal love of some vio- 
lated virgin, who has suffered long and is kind ! These are 
solemn, but almost interdicted truths. There are some whom I 
know, of this detestable class ; men who will bow, and sentimen- 
tahze, and flourish at soirees and assemblies, at operas and thea- 
tres, who have valiantly spent years of their worthless and spend- 
thrift lives, in daily and nightly endeavors to compass the dia- 



92 OLLAPODIANA. 

honor of some lowly and lovely One, whom ' nature made weak, 
trusting her defence to man's generosity ;' whose happiness was 
the end and aim of loving parents, and whose brow her dishonor 
has laid in the tomb ! 

Let me not be understood as the apologist of guilt. I rever- 
ence the sweetness and majesty of virtue, but I love the sway of 
justice. I would warn the tender sex against the easy prejudice 
which leads them to visit the sins of the voluptuous offender of 
the moral law upon the victim whom only years of systematic 
villany could bring within his toils ; who makes the holiest pas- 
sion subservient to the establishment of the unholiest; until at 
the last, honor, conscience, hope, all that was worth possessing, 
is banished from that breast which he found pure, and left cor- 
rupted and in shame. 

Talking of shame : I wonder if a young woman ever made 
a better defence of her lover than did Juliet for Romeo, before 
that garrulous old nurse of hers : 

NuRSK. — Shame come to Romeo! 
Juliet. Blistered be thy tongue 

For uttering that word ! Upon his brow 

Shame is ashamed to sit. 

It is a throne where Honor should be crowned 

Sole monarch of the universal earth. 

I admire that glorious play of Shakspeare's. It abounds with 
such gushes of heavenly tenderness — such delicate expressions, 
such delicious passages, that I revel in its perusal. It is a 
thing to read at Summer twilight, or at the close of a soft, mild 
day in Autumn. True, I would not much affect the hearing of 
it from the lips of your rouged and periwig'd players ; but it is 
sweet to read. I doubt whether there is more excellent music in 
any composition, more melliffluous and touching, than the fol- 
lowing lines. Just note, dear reader, how the rich liquids melt 
and mingle with each other ; especially in the lines I have itali- 
cised : 

Jdhet. — Wilt thou begone ? It is not yet near day : 
It was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear : 
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree : 
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. 

Romeo. — It was the lark, the herald of the mom. 

No nightingale : look, love, what envious streaks 
Do lace the severing clouds, in yonder East: 
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops : 
I must be gone and live — or stay, and die.' 



OLLAPODIANA. 93 

I know nothing in the range of English composition, except 
two or three verses in Gray's Elegy, superior in harmony to, 
these. America, however, puts in her claim. It has been re- 
served for a bard of this republic — some inglorious Milton of 
the West — to approach the divine original. Reader, elevate 
thine ear and listen. The verse now to be quoted, is from a love- 
letter, indited by a youth who was recently indicted for a breach 
of the marriage promise, and mulcted in many shekels. Thus 
he vents his plaint, and spell of wo : 

'Don't you hear yanders tiikle dove 
A-morning upon yanders tree ? 
It is a-morning for its true love, 
So do I morn to be with thee !' 

There is said to be ' a coincidence in great minds ;' and really 
these last quoted verses would seem to prove it. Juliet and her 
Romeo speak of the lark and nightingale ; our bard changes 
those sweet fowls to the ' tirkle-dove,^ and causes it to roar you 
gently, as if it were yet unweaned. But we will let him go. 



It is strange what a wonderful power we have in every one of 
our senses to awaken associations ! The taste of some well- 
flavored apple, such as I used to eat in other days, will open 
upon me a whole volume of boyhood. Sometimes, too, there 
are tones in a flute, deftly discoursed upon, that arouse within 
my spirit a thousand recollections. They convoy me back to 
better times, and I find myself hiding with my young playmates 
among the ripe strawberries of the meadow, listening the while 
to the ' sweet divisions' of the bob-o'lincoln, as it sang in the air! 
Little paroxysms of puerility such moments are ; but I would 
not exchange them for the plaudits of the multitude, or the voice 
of revelry. Something I had then about my heart — some light 
aerial influence — which has since been lost among the hollow 
pageantries of the world. I admire that song of Hood's, in 
which, while recapitulating the memories of his boyhood, he 
says : 

' I REMEMBER, I remember 

The pine trees, dark and high ; 
I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky ; 
It was a childish ignorance — 

But now 'tis little joy 
To know Vm farther off from Heave7i 

Than when I ivas a hoy /' 

In truth, if one wishes to preserve the true wisdom of nature, 
he must keep about him the childhood of his soul. That was a 



94 OLLAPODIANA. 

pleasant feature in the character of Chief Justice Marshall. I 
have seen it related of him, that, not many years before his death, 
he used to be found in the neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia, 
with his coat off, playing at quoits with the youth of that region. 
He lacked no wisdom ; but he knew what was good for the spirit, 
and had a relish for fun. 



Apropos of fun : there are many who wish to be grave and 
dignified without the 'power of face!' I knew a htde bandy- 
legged comedian once, who, finding his profession insufficient for 
his wants turned undertaker. Here was a change ! He carried 
into his new business his old merry smirk, and the roguish 
twinkle of his eye ; insomuch that when patrons called to get his 
hearse, or a coffin, he seemed evermore laughing at their sorrows. 
He finally gave up his fresh calling in despair. He said his 
cursed facetious mug would be the ruin of him, in any serious 
vocation. He has now betaken himself to the art and mystery 
of tailoring, in which he hopes to thrive. Perhaps he ii^ay ; but 
he has taken a wrong course for it ; because 

His speculative skill 
Is hasty credit and a distant bill ; 

two most dubious specimens of enterprise. 



By-the-by — how ambitious students do make this class of 
artisans suffer ! I remember a fellow, Bob Edwards by name, 
whom all the scholars loved, and all the landlords hated, who 
used to patronize these thread-and-needle citizens, until he nearly 
ruined several of them. He was an adroit rascal, yet one of the 
funniest, gleesome dogs alive. He once founded in the institu- 
tion a train of soirees, called ' Baked-Potato-Parties,' and right 
pleasant ones they were ; for all the appurtenances of wine, but- 
ter, bread, and everything good, were smuggled by ' Dust and 
Ashes' to grace the feast. These revels occurred every other 
night, among the students of the different halls. One afternoon, 
when it came Edwards' turn to play the host, it chanced to be a 
dismal day ; there was a fine, drizzling rain coming down upon 
the damp and heavy snow. He determined, to cheer his spirits, 
after recitations, to anticipate the evening's glee, with one or two 
boon companions. Accordingly he despatched to my apartment 
the following : 

'VERO ILLUSTRISSIMO JOHANNO OLLAPODIO: 

'SALUTEM! 
• Vene meo cubiculo hoc post meridiem quartern horam vel diraidium 
horse post. Hoc est damnatus dies pluvialis, et habeo ceruleos diabolos, 
similis Tartaro. 



OLLAPODIANA. 95 

'Forsitan possumus habere conveisationem plenam jocunditatis, et 
superfusam optimorum jocorum — si inclinationem habis ire indivisum Por- 
culum, vel elevare Aatiquum Henriqum, in hanc viam, Sperabo videre 
meum excellentissimum amicum Ollapodianura, horam ante scriptain. 

Pax Vobiscum. 
' Die Januarii, vigessinio seciindo, anno Cliristi, } 

millessimo, octingessirno, vigesimo secundo.^ ^ 'Robertus.' 

In compliance with this mysterious and classical summons, I 
repaired speedily to Edwards' apartment. He had made ample 
preparations for his ' party ;' but he was desirous to exceed the 
usual hilarity of the occasion. I found him surrounded with 
good things. A basket of grape champaigne in one corner ; in 
another, a bushel of potatoes, poured out upon the floor ; a 
bake-pan in the midst, and a glorious flame in his fire-place. In 
our anticipatory proceedings, we became exceedingly jolly ; so 
much so, indeed, that I forgot entirely how the time passed when 
I should have been at my ordinary supper with the fellows of my 
mess, at our boarding-house. By-and-by, the members of the 
party began to arrive ; and the apartment was soon crowded al- 
most to sufibcation. But the wassail had scarcely begun. The 
* boys' continued to crowd in ; until at last there was a perfect 
jam. A pretty girl from our quarters had been engaged to act 
as general attendant, and she was never treated with more respect- 
ful deference than on that memorable evening. 

At last, the time came to ' serve up.' The baked potatoes 
with all their luxurious condiments, were dished; and when our 
repast was finished, we were dished. Few, indeed, of our large 
symposium could tell his elboiv from his chin, or any other por- 
tion of his anatomical system. We became obstreperous. As 
Charles Lamb says, ' There was too much fun.' By degrees, 
however, we came partially to ourselves, and I happened to re- 
member that there was a ball in the neighborhood, to which 
nearly all of us had been invited. An old sleigh was procured ; 
we ferreted out four horses, and a negro named Apollo, to drive 
them ; and off we started in high glee, on our saltatory enterprise. 

I hastened to my room, when our plan was decided, and hur- 
riedly completed my wardrobe. We embarked en masse in the 
sleigh — and how we went! In a shorter time than I can des- 
cribe, we were at the festive resort. We heard, as we were rig- 
ging, the music from the hall. 

We entered — Jove knows how. I remember being struck 
with the gay appearance of the ball-room, and the large assem- 
blage of pretty girls. I stepped up to one — the daughter of a 
Judge, and a member of Congress. She was one of your 



96 OLLAPODIANA. 

plump, rosy-faced creatures, buxom and pleasing. < She was a 
being of loveliness ; nature had compressed and concentrated in 
her dumpy form, the attractions of a dozen. Her face was 
bright and expressive — her figure, of course, was perfect — O, 
quite so !' 

To this damsel I addressed myself, and solicited her hand in 
the dance. She assented ; and with my brain reeling with fan- 
cies of wine and women, I really thought, for the moment, that 
she ' did me proud.' I flourished my 'kerchief, restored it to my 
pocket, and proceeded to encase my digits in gloves. 

The dance was beginning, I took my place, and drew my 
silk gayits hastily over my hands. The black fiddler had stamped 
— we were near the head — and there was no time to be lost. I 
^seized my partner,' as commanded by the sable Apollo, and 
went ahead. When we i-eached the bottom of the row — for it 
was a country dance — I was all in a glow; and drawing my 
mouclioir from my pocket, essayed to mop my perspiring temples. 
As I did so, I was partially 'ware of a general snicker through 
the room. What could it be for ? I looked around ; every one 
looked at me. I looked down — then at my hands. The sight 
was quite enough. For a handkerchief, I had flourished a com- 
mon dickey, the strings whereof fell to my feet — long as the 
moral law. For gloves, I had selected from my trunk a pair of 
short silk pump-hose, ' well saved' by numerous emendations that 
had been required by sundry previous scrapes ; all these I had 
displayed o?i and in my hands, before the multitude ! 

Words are but poor types of my chagrin. One haw-buck 
dancer — a fellow whom I caught in several vulgar attempts to 
achieve a ' pigeon-wing' — came up to me with an impudent air, 
and thus right eloquent, said : 

' Mister, I think them gloves o' your'n must be so'th'in rather 
new. Dare say the' re fresh from 'York. They 2ire darned good, 
any how ; any body can see that.' 

' I say,' yelled another biped of the same genius, ' is that the 
last go for han'ker'chers? They can't steal them, can they, with 
strings to 'em. That's a right smart contrivance.' 



There are some matters of the Past, upon which I do not 
look back with any special complacency — and this is one. 

But ' the longest night,' as well as the longest day, ' maun ha' 
an end.' I was too jovial to comprehend exactly the ridiculous- 
ness of my whereabout in the ball-room ; but its memory accom- 
panied my head-ache the next morning most vividly. 



OLLAPODIANA. 97 

The worst of the affair, however — setting aside all the desa- 
gremens of creeping through our cold halls to bed somewhere 
about three in the morning — had not yet come. Edwards'' 
beautiful Latin letter to me had been dropped in the great hall, 
and some officious puppy, who disliked either him or me, had 
conveyed it to the president. No man ever showered a more 
humiliating lecture upon another, than did that worthy function- 
ary impart to Edwards, before all the members of the institution, 
after morning prayers. He inveighed against his insubordinationi 
his profanity, and his general looseness of character, in terms 
altogether too harsh, and quite disproportioned to his offence. 

Edwards was cut to the quick, and he determined to have 
some kind of satisfaction. He sent for me at noon to come to 
his room. I found him boiling, over his grate, a kind of oUa- 
podrida, composed of mashed potatoes, tar, and brimstone. His 
eye twinkled as he pointed to the ' mess of pottage.' 

' Slab and good, isn't it ?' said he laughing. 

' What in the name of wonder,' replied I, ' are you going to 
do with that stuff?' 

'Never you mind, my boy — 7ious verrons. I am going to 
make a pair of gloves for a friend of mine.' 

I could get no other clue to his intentions. All that he requir- 
ed of me was to help him carry the kettle at midnight to an ad- 
jacent creek, and to keep dark on the subject. 

I promised — for Edwards could always persuade me to any- 
thing — and I kept my promise* 

The next morning the president came down from his room, in 
the second hall, (to which he always ascended for a few moments 
after coming from his home), slipping his hands along the banis- 
ters, as his manner was, and entered the chapel. As he closed 
the door, his hand stuck to the knob thereof. He pulled it 
away with gentle violence ; and looking at his dexter, found it 
begrimed and black, with a specious of sombrous gray pudding. 
His brow flushed with anger, as he ascended to his desk on the 
rostrum. 

' Students !' he said, lifting both his hands in a mock-heroic 
attitude, ' I have been the object of some one's narrow spite. 
The bannisters leading to the second hall have been covered with 
an adhesive and unclean substance, the component parts of which 
I could not analytically recognise on a cursory inspection, but 
which are doubtless unsavory and displeasing to the last degree. 
This mingled substance, composition, or compost, has been 
placed there, as an insult to me. I ask, earnestly, who is it that 
has done this thing?' 

7 



98 OLLAPODIANA. 

No one answered, but a subdued titter ran through the chapel. 

* I ask,' he repeated, ' who is the author of this outrage ? Who 
had a hand in it V 

* Please, Sir, nobody knows,' said one Tom Hines, a friend 
of Edwards ; ' but it is thought, Mr. President, that you have 
had the greatest hand in it. It certainly appears so !' 

' Silence, impertinent youth !' said the president, loftily waving 
his dingy hand ; ' your conjectures are needless. I shall leave 
no stone unturned to ferret out this mystery. Let us pray.' 

This, however, was the last of the marvel. I kept Edwards' 
counsel; the kettle was under the ice — and his room told no 
secrets. The wisdom of our noble principal never fathomed the 
wonder which so troubled him. The interpretation of it was 
never made known. If he is yet alive, and this sketch should 
meet his eye, he may find a clue to the * occulted guilt' of Ed- 
wards. 

We had a great passion in those days, when we sleighed in 
the vicinity, for exciting the surprise of the rustic publicans there- 
about, by what we called lingual embellishments. Edwards set 
this novelty afloat. I remember a pung-ride one evening to an 
inn, a few miles distant, (the sign of which, swinging from a pine 
bough over the door, bore the name of • The United States 
Hotel, and North American Mansion House'), where Edwards 
entered in quest of some sweet potatoes for a supper. It was 
an esculent much affected by us all. 

' Landlord !' said he, as he entered, cracking his whip, ' can 
you enable us, from your culinary stores, to realize the pleasure 
of a few dulcet murphies, rendered innocuous by igneous martyr- 
dom?' 

' I don't know them dishes,' answered Boniface ; * I'll jest ax 
my wife.' 

' Oh, go the unadorned English, Edwards,' cried we all ; * ask 
for what we want in the mother tongue.' 

' Well, here goes ; in other words, landlord, can you bake us 
some sweet potatoes V 

'Oh, sartingbj! Walk in the other room — walk in — walk 
in,' said the publican, as much relieved as if he had been re- 
prieved from the gallows — for he felt mortified at his want of 
comprehensive scholarship. 

Poor Edwards ! — he died in India. A propensity for voya- 
ging overcame his soul ; and for years he strayed about the world, 
just for the excitement. He closed his pretty law-office, after he 



OLLAPODIANA. 99 

had graduated, to go to sea before the mast ; came home m his 
tarpaulin hat, and with hands hard as stone. On the strands of 
Asia, Africa, and Europe, he trode ; and finally sunk under rf 
fever on the banks of the Ganges. His cousin, who was his 
idol, died, as I believe of a broken heart. Many a foreign ship 
brought letters from him to her hand ; and it was ever his fond 
hope to return, and, when his wanderings were over, to settle in 
his native village — make her his bride' — go gently with her 
down the declivity of years — and ' die at home at last.' 

She never smiled after she heard of his death ; but sank calmly 
and sweetly to her dreamless repose. 

Poor Emily Egerton ! I admired thee, that thou wast my 
friend's best friend ; and for his sake, thy beauty pleased me j 
and thine eye was brighter, that its sweetest glances were for him. 
Alas ! for the dust that has fallen upon those lips, once so musi- 
cal and now so dumb — for the smile that Death has broken — 
for the hopes that w^ere buried with thee ! But when such as thou 
evanish from the world, who shall repine ? 

I KNOW thou hast gone to the place of thy rest 

Then why should ray soul be so sad ? 
I know thou hast gone where the weary are blest, 

And the mourner looks up, and is glad ; 
Where Love hath left off, in the land of its birth, 

All the stains it hath gathered in this; 
And Hope, the sweet singer that gladdened the earth, 

Lies asleep on the bosom of Bliss. 



NUMBER NINE. 

January, 1837. 

Reader — do you skate? Have you ever enjoyed the ex- 
ulting sense of standing upon some wide, ice-bound river, having 
your loins girded about, and your feet shod with the preparation 
of that pleasant pastime ? If not, then hath the culture of your 
understanding been greviously neglected. With me skating is a 
passion. When the winter air is mild and bracing — when there 
are no clouds about the zenith, but a few quiet, golden ones, 
hanging like a rich curtain all around the horizon — then to step 
with your glittering heel upon an expanse of congelated crystal, 
and outstrip the wind — there is rapture in it. It is the quintes- 
sence of life and ' free moral agency.' You can go ivliere you 
list, and as you list ; fast or slow ; gliding or shooting over the 
area where you are disporting, until it is with lines ' both centric 



100 OLLAPODIAXA. 

and eccentric scribbled o'er,' and you feel that you have done 
wonders. I love to push onward in a straight line, or to wheel in 
curious circumgyrations ; forming parallels and circles on my 
bright high-dutchers ; leaving droves behind, and feeling at my 
heart the fiery glow of the skater's ambition ; until the city, with 
its spires and flags flouting the sky, disappears in the distance. 
There is nothing like it, for it is, next to a sleigh-ride, the very 
soul of existence. Nature to me is very beautiful in winter. 
How pure is the air ! What loveliness, surpassing even the 
spring-time, rests on the landscape ! The hills, rising pale and 
blue afar; the vales and plains, dotted with farm-yards, where 
the herds are huddled ' in their cotes secure,' and the yellow 
straw or green hay marks the place of their pleased imprison- 
ment. From the barn, you hear the hollow-sounding flail of the 
thresher ; from the street, near and far, the cheerful jingle of 
bells ; and all around you, when you gain some eminence, you 
behold the shining lakes and mountains, bright as silver in the 
beams of the sun ! Then again, winter is so perfectly salubrious. 
Sanctified and enshrined in its atmosphere, ' the dog, the horse, 
the rat,' though never so defunct, are inoffensive for months ; 
whereas, in the solstice, they would directly fill your nostril with 
indignation, and demand prompt exequies. I say I like winter, 
and I care not who knows it. He that differs from me, may go 
his ways. His taste mislikes me. 

Charles Kemble is probably one of the best skaters in the 
world. Jehu ! how he used to ' go it' on the Schuylkill, until 
he seemed, not an aged, wig-ensconced man, in lean and slipper- 
ed pantaloon, but a creature of the elements, endowed with the 
power of out-chasing the very lightnings of heaven. His ele- 
mentary instruction began on the Serpentine, in London ; it was 
completed in Germany ; and he now stands before the world, ac- 
counted a superior skater — oh, very much so ! But he is very 
dull in Macbeth. 

Winter gives energy to everything. A full city, in sleighing- 
lime, is a perfect carnival. Whew ! how the cutters, pungs, and 
fours-in-hand, sweep over the pave ! How the bells tintinnabu- 
iate ! Woman looks sweeter then, than ever. The demoiselle 
in her boa, with her muff* and fur-shoes, presents a picture of 
warmth and comfort, that you can not too much admire. At this 
season — perhaps in this I am peculiar — 'high mountains are a 
feehng.' How I should like to have been with Napoleon, when 
he crossed those wintry Alps ! to have shared in the excitement 
— the danger — the triumph! Never, in all his brilliant career, 



OLLAPODIANA. 101 

did he perform an act more sublime and powerful, in my eyes. 
This alone, had he achieved nothing more, would have stamped 
him the greatest Captain of his age. 

Apropos of Napoleon. I remember hearing from somebody, 
or reading in some book, or pamphlet, or newspaper — bear with 
me, kind reader, in this incertitude, for I have forgotten all the 
particulars — an anecdote of him that seems to me worth pre- 
serving, or, perhaps, I should rather say, rescuing, from the 
oblivion to which it is rapidly hastening. It finely illustrates one 
portion of his infinitely-diversified character ; and I marvel that 
it has escaped the notice or the researches of all his biographers, 
eulogists, critics, and censors. I must be forgiven, if, in recal- 
ling it, I should be guilty of a lapse from historical accuracy ; I 
am a sad bungler at dates, and my library boasts not a ' Chro- 
nology.' 

Thus ran the tale. One of the detenus, whom the abrupt re- 
sumption of hostilities after the short peace of — Tilsit, was it? - 
— found a wanderer upon the French soil, for his greater misfor- 
tune, was an Englishman of large fortune, and some rank above 
that of a mere private gentleman ; but whether knight, baron, or 
baronet, is more than I can remember. He was a widower, with 
an only child, a daughter. He had become personally known to 
the Emperor, when First Consul, and a certain degree of friend- 
ship had sprung up between them. This friendship was in some 
sort renewed, when the Englishman became an involuntary resi- 
dent of the French capital ; the rigors of detention and surveil- 
lance were much softened in his behalf, and he was often a par- 
taker of the Emperor's hospitality ; not, indeed, at the formal 
levees and soirees of the palace, but in private and familiar visits, 
of which Napoleon was fond, and to the enjoyment of which he 
appropriated as much of his time as could be spared from the im- 
mense number and magnitude of his burdensome imperial occu- 
pations. The Englishman was discreet, and the monarch con- 
descending ; their tete-a-tkes were, therefore, not infrequent, and 
both parties seemed to take pleasure in their repetition. 

The child of the Englishman had been placed at a school in 
one of the provincial towns ; but he solicited and obtained from 
his imperial friend permission for her to join him in Paris. He 
received intelligence of her setting out, accompanied by a faith- 
ful domestic ; but days passed away, and she came not to lighten 
his solitude. His anxiety and alarm gained strength, day after 
day, until at length they dxove him almost to phrensy. He im- 
plored leave to proceed in search of her, and it was granted ; but 



102 OLLAPODIANA. 

the search proved unavailing. He was enabled to trace her some 
distance on her journey to the capital, but at a certain point, all 
indications disappeared, and he was driven to the miserable con- 
viction that, in some mysterious and unaccountable manner, she 
bad perished. He returned to Paris, almost heart-broken. 

The morning after his arrival, he was astonished by a sudden 
visit from an officer, at the head of a body of gens-d'armes, who 
arrested him in the name of the Emperor. His first emotion 
was astonishment, his second indignation ; and this was not a 
little heightened, when the officer, with an unusual degree of 
harshness and brusquerie, announced to him that he was accused 
of conspiring against the life of the Emperor, and that he was to 
J>e confined, e?i secret, until the day of his trial before a military 
commission. 

His temper was naturally quick and ardent, and it vented it- 
self in reproaches, exclamations, and perhaps a few oaths ; but 
as they were uttered in English, they seemed to produce no effect 
on the officer. He was placed in a carriage, the blinds were 
drawn, and the horses started at full speed. 

After riding some distance, but in what direction the prisoner 
could not determine, by reason of the closeness of the vehicle, it 
stopped suddenly, a bandage was drawn over his eyes, and he 
was led into some building ; but whether the Conciergerie, or the 
Bicetre, he could only conjecture. After traversing various pas- 
sages, in silence, but brooding over his wrongs, and almost burst- 
ing with indignation, his progress was arrested, the blind was re- 
moved from his eyes, and he found himself in presence of his 
friend, the Emperor. His first glance conveyed mere wonder ; 
but those which followed it, were glowing with anger, which in- 
creased at every moment. The brow of Napoleon wore a gloomy 
frown, but the heart of the Englishman was too full of wrath to 
quail even before that fearful sign ; it was but reflected from his 
own bold front. ' Tyrant !' he exclaimed, but before he could 
add another word, a door was flung open, and his blooming child 
bounded, all life and loveliness, into his arms. Amazement and 
happiness made him dumb ; and Napoleon, smiling as none but 
him could smile, turned to leave the room, with the single re- 
mark : * Joy and surprise would have turned your brain ; it was 
better to prepare you for the shock, by rousing you to anger.' 

The surpassing skill of Fouche's myrmidons had been called 
into employment by the Emperors command, and had succeeded 
in discovering the child ; but how, or where, 1 have forgotten. 

Poor Napoleon ! I can never think of his brilHant career, 
and desolate end, without feeling the sublimity of Massillon's 



OLLAPODIANA. 103 

ejaculation over the dead body of his monarch, as it lay in state 
before him, in the church of Notre Dame. ' God alone is great P 
He commissions Death, with his cold shaft, and the mighty ai^ 
fallen. The cemetery is subUmer than the battle, or the corona- 
tion. There speaks a power which is beyond all others ; there, 
in the rustling grass, or whisper of the cypress, we hear the 
knell of nations, and the prophecy of that to which they all must 
come — to dust and silence! I am tempted, here, to transcribe 
one of the noblest poems ever written in our language. It may 
be familiar to some of my readers, but it is worth a hundred pe- 
rusals ; while to those who have never seen it, 1 convey a trea- 
sure and a talisman — a rnemento mori. The author, Herbert 
Knovvles, wrote it at twilight, in the churchyard of Richmond, 
England. Shortly afterward, ' he died and was buried in the 
flower of his manhood, 

THE DEAD. 

' Methinks it is good to be here : if thou wilt, let us build three tabernacles ; one 
for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.' The Bible. 

Methinks it is good to be here : 
If thou wilt, let us build — but for whom 1 

Nor Ellas nor Moses appear ; 
But the shadows of evening encompass with gloom 
The abode of the Dead, and the place of the tomb. 

Shall we build to Ambition ? Ah no ! 
Affrighted, he shrinketh away ; 

For see, they would pin him below. 
In a dark narrow cave, and begirt with cold clay, 
To the meanest of reptiles a peer and a prey 

To Beauty ? Ah no ! — she forgets 
The charm that she wielded before ; 

Nor knows the foul worm, that he frets 
The skin that but yesterday fools could adore, 
For the smoothness it held, or the tint that it wore. 

Shall we build to the purple of Pride — 
To the trappings that dizen the proud ? 

Alas ! they are all laid aside ; 
For here 's neither wealth nor adornment allow'd, 
Save the long winding sheet, and the fringe of the shroud. 

Unto Riches ? Alas ! — 'tis in vain ; 
Who here in their turns have been hid, 

Their wealth is all squandered again ; 
And here in the grave are all metals forbid. 
Save the tinsel that shines on the dark coffin-lid. 

To the pleasures that Mirth can afford ? 
The revel — the laugh — and the jeer? 
Ah ! here is a plentiful board ; 



104 OLLAPODIANA. 

But the guests are all mute as their pitiful cheer, 
And none but the worm is a reveller here. 

Shall we build to Affection and Love ? 
Ah no ! they have withered and died, 

Or flown with the spirit above ; 
Friends, brothers, and sisters, are laid side by side, 
Yet none have saluted, and none have replied. 

Unto Sorrow ? The dead cannot grieve ; 
Not a sob, nor a sigh, meets mine ear. 

Which compassion itself coixld relieve ; 
Ah sweetly they slumber, nor love, hope, nor fear — 
Peace, peace is the watch-word — the only one here. 

Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow 1 
Ah, no ! — for his empire is known — 

And here there are trophies enow ; 
Beneath the cold head, and around the dark stone. 
Are the signs of a sceptre that none may disown. 

The first tabernacle to Hope we will build, 
And look for the sleepers around us to rise : 

The second to Faith, which insures it fulfilled, 
And the third to the Lamb of the great Sacrifice, 
Who bequeathed us them both, when he rose to the skies ! 



Some one of our countrymen has written : ' I never shun a 
grave-yard. The thoughtful melancholy it inspires, is grateful 
rather than displeasing to me.' Here we differ. I do shun it ; 
and I hope a good Providence will keep me out of one for a 
long time. I desire not a freehold in any such premises. I like 
the liberal air, the golden sunshine, the excursive thought ; and 
I pray Heaven to detain me long from that ancient receptacle, 
where my kinsmen are inurned. Give me the vital principle be- 
low the sun ; and though I cannot be astonishingly useful to my 
fellow beings, or carve my name, just now, high on the records 
of fame, I can at least enjoy the luxury of fancy, feeling, and 
respiration — to say nothing of the pleasing enjoyment of dream- 
ing, which is in itself worth a dukedom — and the rapture of 
eye-sight. I love not your sackcloth misanthrope, whose whole 
life is darkened by the fear of its inevitable close, and em- 
bittered in the mazes of metaphysics. 



Speaking of metaphysics, reminds me of Bob Edwards. 
Reader, thou art already acquainted with Bob ; thou hast had a 
touch of his quality in the potato line, and hast borne him com- 
pany in sundry expeditions from the sacred groves of Academus ; 
thou hast seen, that, by deeds of valiant daring, he had built up 
for himself a fame which extended far beyond the terrestrial 



OLLAPODIANA. 106 

limits that were allowed us for the exercise of our corporeal func- 
tions, by the individual who instructed the youthful creatures of 
our imaginations in the use of fire-arms, or, in the language of 
the immortal poet, 

' Taught our young ideas how to shoot.' 

He was the plague of the farmers, the glory of the jollifiers, the 
terror of the mothers, and the passion of the daughters, ' all 
over the world, for thirty miles round.' 

He was an uncommon youth, v/as Bob — O, quite so ! 

Bob had a philosophical turn of mind, and was looked up to 
by his satellites with unspeakable reverence. By tacit consent, 
he was vested with an appellate jurisdiction in the little common 
wealth. He sat in judgment upon all questions of law or equity, 
arising between its juvenile members. He delivered his opinion 
like the Oracle of Delphos, and his decrees were final. 

It was winter ; the length of the evenings were remarkable for 
the time of year, the frigidity of the circumambient atmosphere 
was — very considerable. A thought smote Bob. 

He called his associates together, he made a speech, in which, 
with all the alternate fire and pathos of his Heaven-born elo- 
quence, he described the trying position in which the severity of 
the weather had placed them. He spoke of the physical enjoy- 
ments of the human race as empty vanities, which an all-wise 
Providence, for his own good purpose, had qualified with pains 
and penalties. He adverted, in melting terms, to the uncommon 
scarcity of game, by which, for a time, they were debarred from 
the dignified and soul-ennobling pursuit of hunting foxes. He 
went on to observe, that the improvement of the intellectual 
faculties was one of the first duties of man ; and after enlarging 
with great talent upon this incontrovertible position, he proposed 
to his auditors that they should organize a society for the discus- 
sion of subjects involving questions of abstract science. (By 
the way, there are plenty of such discussions and societies now- 
a-days, of which cui bono should be the motto, but whereof I 
would not for a ton of gold be supposed to speak lightly. Oh, 
by no means !) He proceeded to explain his views at length, 
and his purpose having been received with a unanimous appro- 
val, the constitution was signed, the officers were elected, and 
Bob was placed in the Presidential chair of 

THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY. 

And now, reader. Bob was in his glory. Many were the dis- 
cussions held by that erudite body, and numerous were the eluci- 



106 OLLAPODIANA. 

dations of the scientific mysteries which had baffled the mightiest 
intellects of past ages. I do especially remember me of one dis- 
cussion in which our venerated President himself largely partici- 
pated. It was deemed of much' interest to the cause of learning, 
that the debates of the society should be preserved on record ; 
wherefore, the office of Grand Stenographer had been instituted, 
into which responsible station I had been sworn, with great 
solemnity, a short time previous to the period to which I refer. 

It had been determined to hold a grand debate upon a question 
of grave importance. The President's proclamation had gone 
forth,, with an imposing aspect. Three gigantic hand-bills were 
indited by his private secretary. One of these was fastened with 
ten-penny nails upon the portal of the Interniculum Frumenti, 
(as the corn-crib was classically denominated ;) a second on the 
vestibulem of the Temple of the muses, (or, as it was termed by 
the common people, the Pig-pen,) and the third was emblazoned 
on the academic Stabulum. 

I subjoin a true copy of the document, taken from the records 
of the Society. 

'SOCII SOCIETATIS ME T APH Y S IC JE . 

' Convocabunt in aedibus Academise C se, dimidium horse post septi- 
mum, die Jovis, vigesimo Januarii. 

' Orationis argumentum est maxirai raomenti, quia involvit casus scientise, 
antea nunquam agitatos. 

' Quamobrem, nos, Praefectus hujus Societatis eruditse, per hoc manda- 
mus omnibus sociis, fautoribus Metaphysicarum, congregare accurate aedi- 
bus ante dictis. 

' Questio quae proponitur argumento, ut sequitur : ' An chimera, bombin/- 
ans in vacuo, devorat secundus intentiones.' 

'In hac re, nusquam aberramini, sub poena sexdecim caudarum gallorum. 

' E,0BERTUs Edwardus, Prces.^ 

Such was the manifesto of President Bob ; and it may not be 
improper to annex, for the benefit of the general reader, a true 
rendition into the vernacular, of the question on which the Meta- 
physical' Society was to exercise its intellectual energies. 

This, then, was the subject of discussion : ' Whether a chimera, 
ruminating in a vacuum, devoureth second intentions.^ 

The erudite reader can not fail to perceive the importance of 
the occasion, and its tendency to create an irrepressible interest 
in the republic of letters. I pass over the various speculations 
on the subject which had agitated the philosophical world pre- 
vious to the assembling of this august body ; and, deeming that 
the preceding remarks sufficiently introduce the main object, I 
plunge at once, in medias res. 

On the twentieth day of January, in the year of grace one 



OLLAPODIANA. 107 

thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, a grand meeting of the 
Metaphysical Society of C was held in the academic build- 
ings of that ilk. At thirty minutes and seventeen seconds past' 
seven o'clock, post meridiem, the great door of the ante-room 
was thrown open, and the President, supported on the right by 
the chief Curator, Jehoikim Smilax, and on the left by the Cen- 
sor-general, Eliphalet Flunk, entered the hall, with a dignified 
step. 

The members rose in respectful silence, and the President, ac- 
knowledging their salutations with gracious condescension, passed 
on to his official seat. The attendant officers sat in their respec- 
tive places, on either side of the Presidential chair, and the 
Grand Stenographer, John Ollapod, surrounded by the insig- 
nia of his station, occupied his accustomed conspicuous position. 

The hall, which was of large dimensions, was brilliantly illu- 
minated with five dipt candles, of a superior quality, tastefully 
arranged in porter bottles, of a sea-green hue. The whole scene 
presented an imposing aspect, and was calculated to inspire the 
beholder with feelings of solemnity and awe. 

My space will not permit me to extract from the records the 
whole of the President's address, which followed an unbroken 
silence of three minutes, one quarter, and some odd seconds. I 
subjoin only these observations : 

♦ My Brethren : You are assembled to give to a subject which has here- 
tofore confounded the wisdom of man, the iufalHble test of your delibera- 
tions. The eyes of all Europe are upon you; and you occupy an altitude 
before both hemispheres, calculated to call forth your undivided energies. 
Comment from me were useless. 

' Now, therefore, brethren, invoking the aid of our blessed Minerva to 
your righteous endeavors, I quaff this smaller, otherwise called cock-tail, to 
the victory of truth, and the downfall of error.' 

He spake, and taking from the custody of the Grand Treasurer, 
who was in waiting by his side, a tin cup of considerable capa- 
bility, he transferred the generous fluid contained therein, to the 
interior of his abdominal regions. His replenished corpus sank 
gently into the official receptacle, where, after recovering his 
natural equilibrium, he signified to the brethren his pleasure that 
the discussion should commence. Whereupon Mv. Elnathan 
Rummins arose, and thus addressed the assembly : 

'Mr. President : In getting myself up to discourse to this learned body 
on the affirmative side of the question submitted to our decision I feel a 
diffidence couunensurate with the stupendousness of the subject. Yet, 
having bestowed upon it much studious research and attention, 1 feel impe- 
riously bound to express it as my decided opinion, that a chimera, rumina- 
ting in a vacuum, does devour second intentions. I will briefly submit my 



108 OLLAPODIANA. 

♦ Firstly : I will take leave to premise, that after serious and mature de- 
liberation, I have brought my mind to the settled belief that Metaphysics is 
considerable of a science ; that all the ideas we have, are derived from two 
sources, viz : sensation and reflection ; and that the latter is the root from 
which all abstract ideas are generated. 

' I am discussing this question, Mr. President, upon the supposition that 
the doctrine of abstract ideas is fully established. In my mind, it is entirely 
so, and therefore I shall not argue this disputed point. If my premises are 
false, my conclusions will collapse, and my learned opponent must benefit by 
the error. 

♦ What is a chimera, in the modern philosophical sense ? Sir, we can de- 
rive no idea of it from our senses ; the faculty of abstraction mnsi be resort- 
ed to for a definition ; the mind must be withdrawn from the contemplation 
of external objects, and wrapping itself in the solitude of its own originali- 
ty, must frame from its own exclusive resources, an idea of this singular 
being. 

' But notwithstanding this apparent difficulty, there is, in fact, nothing 
more easy than a description of this idea. My own reflections have led me 
to the conclusion, that a chimera is an immaterial, incorporeal, intangible, 
and invisible essence, having no local habitation, and possessing neither form, 
extension, nor substance. Thus I may indulge the pleasing hope, that I 
have, in a very simple manner, conveyed to the Society a clear apprehension 
of the nature of this abstraction. 

♦ From this description, it will be perceived, that a chimera possesses no 
incarnate attributes, but it is the emanation of a spiritual essence, and there- 
fore must be eminently endowed v/ith the faculty of thought, or, in other 
words of rumination. 

' Having thus briefly pointed out the abstract idea of a chimera, and prov- 
ed its implied powers of rumination, I proceed, secondly to show that it 
possesses the undoubted capability of ruminating in a vacuum. To this 
end, let me very properly show the nature of a vacuum. Little need be 
said on this subject. 

' According to some modern philosophers, there are several species of 
vacua, but the vacuum cacervatum is that to which I particularly refer : this is 
conceived as a space entirely destitute of matter ; and, iu my apprehension, 
its existence was successfully urged by those illustrious men who professed 
the Pythagorean, the Epicurean, and the Corpuscularian philosophy ; but as 
the human mind is composed of discordant principles, the spirit of opposi- 
tion (for I cannot imagine it to have been anything else) induced the advo- 
cates of the Cartesian doctrines to deny its existence. They urged, that if 
there be nothing material in an enclosed space, the walls of the enclosure 
must be brought into contact ; thus insisting upon the principle, that exten- 
sion is matter. But the Corpuscular authors, with much promptness, refu- 
ted the arguments of the Cartesians and Peripatetics, by the existence of 
various circumstances ; and they instanced planetary and cometary motion, 
the fall of bodies, the vibration of the pendulum, re-refraction and con- 
densation, the divisibility of matter, etc. 

' Now permit me to observe, Mr. President, that it is altogether impossi- 
ble to effect motion in ^.plenum. I do not wish to make this position depend 
for support upon my bare assertion; I am borne out in it by the dictum of 
Lucretius, thus: 'Piincipium quonam cedendi nulla daret res — undique 
materies quoniam stipata fuisset.' Although I might well rest here, Mr. Pres- 
ident, upon such mighty authority, I will nevertheless enter upon the proofs 
which go to the establishing of this principle. 

^ First. All inotion is in a straight line, or in a curve which returns into 



OLLAPODIANA. 109 

Iteelf, as, for example, the circle and the ellipsis, or in one that does not 
return into itself, as the parabolic curve. Second: that the moving force 
must always be greater than the resistance. Now it is perfectly clear from 
this, that no quantum of force, even though increased ad infinitum, cafi 
produce motion, where the resistance is also infinite ; consequently, it is not 
possible that motion can exist, either in a straight line, or in anon-returning 
curve ; because, in either of these cases, the amounts of force and resis 
tance would counterbalance each other; that is, ihey would be infinite. 

' You will therefore perceive, Mr. President, that there remains only the 
motion of a revolving cuiTe practicable; and this must either be a revolu- 
tion upon an axis, or an annular motion round a stationary body ; now both 
of these would be impossible in an elliptic curve, and consequently, all mo- 
tions must be in circles geometrically true ; and, the bodies thus revolving 
must either be spheres, spheroids, or cylinders; otherwise the revolution in a 
plenum would be altogether impracticable. But, Sir, such figures and mo- 
tions have no existence in nature ; yet we know, from the evidence of the 
senses, that motion, in a non-returning curve, does exist; therefore a vacu- 
um must exist. 

' Having now shown that a chimera is a creature of the imagination, and 
that therefore it does not require the inhalation of atmospheric air to sup- 
port life, and having shown the nature and existence of the vacuum, it is of 
course evident that a chimera may ruminate in a vacuum. 

' I proceed, in the next place, to demonstrate, that a chimera thus rumi- 
nating, does devour second intentions.' 



At this stage of his speech, Rummins exhibited symptoms of 
exhaustion, and on motion of Mr. Jeremiah Tomkins, the ques- 
tion was postponed until the next ensuing meeting. Whenever 
I feel disposed to make my reader bolt a few solids, among his 
intellectual edibles, I shall fling in a scrap from the ' Society.' I 
think I can demonstrate thereby, that a great deal of plausible 
argument can be used, to demonstrate a small amount of fact, 
mingled with an immensity of error. Metaphysics, now-a-days, 
can not be deemed a very clear science. Muddy brains have 
elucidated it to death. That was not a bad description of the 
art given by the Scotchman : ' Metaphysics, mon, is where the 
hearers dinna ken what the speaker is talking anent, and he does 
na ken himsel' ;' but the following definition of one of the meta- 
physical tribe, by my friend Norman Leslie, is perhaps as good 
a one as can be found : ^Mctapliysician: Encountered a Doctor.' 



Is IT not singular, how one thought brings on another ! Now 
this slight discussion of metaphysics and abstraction, reminds me 
of a bachelor, an accidental and slight acquaintance of mine, 
who remains in single blessedness, because, he says, he has al- 
ways been accustomed, ' e'en from his boyish days,' to look at 
women in the abstract. Fine eyes he regards merely as filmy 
globes of water, that shut their coward gates against an atom ; 



110 OLLAPODIANA. 

lips he deems but horizontal lines of flesh, constituting the aper- 
ture into which beef, pork, potatoes, and other eatable substances 
periodically enter. The bloom on the cheek of woman, he con- 
siders superfluous blood, prophetic of speedy decay ; smiles, in 
his esteem, are merely the effect of nervous excitement ; and 
frowns, he thinks, are the proper elucidators of the human heart, 
especially woman's, which he says has always a small portion of 
discontent and anxiety predominant therein. Holding such no- 
tions, he is, of course, somewhat unhappy 5 but he dissipates his 
enmii by a copious reception of vinous fluids ; and is, moreover, 
a potent eater of oysters. I am half inclined to believe in 
metempsychosis, and to suppose that the souls of these testaceous: 
articles, if souls they have, ascend him into the brain, and give 
the impetus to his present opinions. At any rate he is quite a 
dolt. 1 always cut him in the street. His reckless life has undone 
him, as it were. He owes every body ; has been often in jail ; 
and those who keep his company, are in something such a situa- 
tion as one would be at sea, in a leaky boat, they must be ever- 
more 'bailing him out.' I think he has come to his present 
sentiments in consequence of the treatment he receives ; every 
body, females especially, considering him a nonentity ; while he 
looks at thon in the abstract. 



To-morrow will be Christmas. Happy day ! How I envy 
the young hearts that its advent will cheer ! whose elastic and 
bounding affections it will revive and strengthen ! Would to 
heaven I were a millionaire, for to-morrow only ! There should 
not be a rosy face in the Union that should not be the brighter 
for my benefactions. I would distribute presents to every urchin 
and miss I met ; and that holiest of all pleasures, benevolence, 
should nestle warmly in my bosom. Goo bless the children ! 
unsullied by the guileful contacts of the world ; fresh in their 
feelings, simple in their desires, fervent in their loves, they are 
the emblems of blessedness and peace. Truly of such is the 
kingdom of Heaven ; and sweetly did the characteristic meek- 
ness of our Saviour appear when he said, ' Suffer Httle children 
to come unto me !' Would that I were a boy again ! Would 
that I had my few years to live over again ! I would enjoy the 
present, as it rolled on the future ; I would revel in the light of 
sparkling eyes, and the smile of lips, that the grave has closed 
and sealed for ever ! I would sing, and shout, and fly my kite, 
and glide down the snowy hill on my little craft, as in days of 
yore. I would enjoy the spring, as I used once to do ; that 
pleasant season, as William Lackaday, Esquire, observes in the 



OLLAPODIANA. Ill 

play, ' when the balmy breezes is a-blowin', and the primroses 
peeps out, and the little birds begins for to sing ;' and I would 
make it a point to have no enemies. I would do this without 
being a Joseph Surface, too ; for I hold insincerity to be the 
most detestable of all the vices for which men go unhung. 

It strikes me that Christmas is not celebrated with such sober- 
ness and godliness as it was wont to be. People drink more than 
formerly ; they do not become devout over the deceased turkey, 
or adolescent hen, that lies in solemn lifelessness before the eater ; 
but they meet in clubs, and consort with publicans and sinners. 
If Christmas happeneth toward the close of the week, they ' keep 
up' the same until Sunday hath gone by ; and it is not until the 
even-song of the second day of the week ensuing the festival, 
that they can bring themselves to cease from their wassail ; and 
even then they do it with much — oh! considerable — reluctance, 
exclaiming, as they ruminate bedv/ard, ' Sic transit gloria Mon- 
day.'' 

Before I close with Christmas, let me relate a little story, 
just now told me, connected in some degree with that glorious 
holy day. 

Publicans are classed in the New Testament, with sinners, as 
though there were something demoralizing in the business of 
keeping open house ; but if the conjunction be not an error of 
the translators, I know of at least one exception to the rule. The 
individual is hereby immortalized. 

Some twenty or twent}^-five, or it may be thirty years ago, the 
landlord of the Bush tavern in Bristol, England, was so far a 
benevolent man, that on every Christmas-day he used to set an 
immense table, at which whosoever would was at liberty to sit 
and replenish his inner man with as much roast beef and plum- 
pudding as he could dispose of, a privilege of which, it may well 
be supposed, the poor of that ancient and by no means elegant 
city were not backward to avail themselves. But the dinner 
alone, flanked as it was by an ad libitum distribution of stout ale 
and cider, could not appease the generous propensities of mine 
host of the Bush ; he was in the habit, also, of giving away a 
score of guineas, upon the same anniversary, which were be- 
stowed in small sums of from five shillings to twenty, upon 
such of the free guests as appeared to stand most in need of 
something more than a dinner. 

It had been observed for some weeks toward the close of a 
particular year, which I do not remember, that an elderly person- 
age, whom nobody knew, was in the habit of stepping into the 



112 OLLAPODIANA. 

Bush every day, and taking a single glass of bran dy-and- water, 
with which he contrived to dally so long as was requisite for the 
thorough perusal of a London paper, brought down by the guard 
of one of the night coaches. A London paper was a great thing 
at that time, in Bristol. The gentleman was elderly, as I have 
said ; and moreover, his person and garb, as well as his habits, 
gave token of poverty. He was thin, and apparently feeble ; his 
coat was seedy, his hat rusty, his nether habiliments thread-bare, 
and otherwise betokening long and arduous service ; and his ex- 
penditure never exceeded the sixpence required to pay for the one 
glass of brandy-and-water. Nobody seemed to know him ; and 
after a few of his daily calls, he came to be recognised by the 
waiters and landlord, with that happy adaptation of names for 
which English landlords and waiters are remarkable, as ' The poor 
gentleman that reads the paper.' 

If any doubts existed as to his poverty, they were dispelled 
when Christmas-day arrived, and the poor gentleman was seen 
taking his place at the long table, and demoUshing an ample al- 
lowance of the beef and the pudding, for which there was nothing 
to pay. ' Poor fellow !' soliloquized the landlord of the Bush ; 
' I'm sure he can't afford that sixpence every day for his brandy- 
and-water ; I must make it up to him again. His measures were 
accordingly taken ; John the waiter had his instructions ; and 
when the poor gentleman handed his plate for another slice of 
the pudding, a guinea was slipped into his hand, with the whis- 
pered, ' Master's compliments. Sir, and says this will do to lay 
in some winter flannels for the children.' The poor gentleman 
looked at the coin, and then at the waiter ; then deposited the 
first in the right hand pocket of his small clothes ; and then drew 
forth a card which he handed to John, quietly remarking : ' My 
thanks and compliments to your master, and tell him that if he 
ever happens to come my way, I hope he'll call upon me.' This 
was the card : 



THOMAS 


COUTTS, 


59 STRAND, 




LONDON. 



The ' poor gentleman' was at Bristol, superintending the erec- 
tion of some thirty or forty houses, which he was building on 
speculation. What afterward passed between him and the land- 
lord of the Bush, is not recorded ; but this much is known, that 



OLLAPODIANA. 113 

the said landlord soon after engaged very largely in the coaching 
business ; that his drafts on Coutts and Co., the great bankers, 
were always duly honored ; that he was very successful, and be- 
came one of the richest men in Bristol. And it is farther said, 
that the identical Christmas guinea is still in the possession of 
the * poor gentleman's' widow, her Grace the Duchess of St. 
Albans. 

And now. Reader, peace be with you ! This salutation by 
the hand of me, Ollapod. 



NUMBER TEN. 

February, 1836. 

There is a pensive, melancholy feeling, which overpowers 
the heart of a resident in a city, when he goes at twilight from 
the scene of his business and his cares to the fireside of home. 
As he passes along the crowded thoroughfare, jostled by the 
hundreds that meet him ; as he looks forward through the un- 
certain atmosphere, to forms and dwellings dimly descried, by 
twinkling lamps in the distance, and sees damp walls and streets 
receding from his footsteps ; he falls into a train of musing. 
How many deeds does the night bring on ! How many an un- 
suspected and impatient eye watches the golden sun go down 
into the glowing bosom of the West ; how many hearts beat high 
with suspense or disquiet, while the wan twilight deepens into 
evening, and the stars, one by one, glittering like diamonds 
through the infinite air, 'set their watch in the sky!' The 
afiianced bride waits for her lover, counting the footsteps that fall 
upon the pavement, and taxing the disciphne of her ready ear 
with the task of decision whether they be his or no ; the church- 
goer longs for the bell, whose voice proclaims the hallowed hour 
of prayer, and lingers in fond solicitude for the moment when the 
chapel-ward step shall be taken. In unnumbered bosoms are 
kindled the emotions of praise ; and they are pure and holy. 
Nothing can exceed the beauty of a truly calm and chastened 
afiection. It is alike lovely when bestowed on God or man. 
The relinquishment of self ; the trusting dependence on the Great 
Power of Nature; the fond aspirations for better enjoyments; 
these are the true solace and hope of mortality. 

For one, I am a deep lover of the ' poetry of heaven.' Deli- 
cate and perfect indeed is the ' glitterance of the stars.' I love to 



114 OLLAPODIANA. 

watch their birth in the depths of the evening firmament ; and to 
see the moon walking in their midst ; the Queen of the Evening, 
whose blue pathway glitters with the fadeless jewelry of the uni- 
verse. Some of these glorious spheres spring with their holy 
lustre upon the sight with the quickness of thought, blessing the 
eye with their sweet radiance, and almost haunting the ear with 
that music which seems to echo from that dim period of the past, 
when the morning stars sang together. When I behold them, 
devotional feelings possess my heart ; and I go back on the wings 
of memory to the far away scenes of my boyhood. I think 
again, as I did then, that all created things make melody to their 
God, and, singing as once 1 sung, I say : 

Ask of the ocean-waves that burst 

In music ou the strand, 
Whose murmurs load the scented breeze 

That fans the Summer land ; 
Why is their harmony abroad, 

Their cadence in the sky 
That glitters with the smile of God 

In mystery on high ? 

Question the cataract's boiling tide, 

Down stooping from above, 
Why its proud billows, far and wide 

In stormy thunders move ? 
It is that in their hollow voice 

A tone of praise is given, 
Which bids the fainting heart rejoice, 

And trust the might of Heaven? 

And ask the tribes whose matin song 

Melts on the dewy air. 
Why, like a stream that steals along, 

Flow forth their praises there ? 
Why, when the veil of Eve comes down, 

With all its starry hours, 
The night-bird's melancholy lay 

Rings from her solemn bowers ? 

It is some might of love within, 

Some impulse from on high. 
That bids their matin-song begin, 

Or fills the evening sky 
With gentle echoes all its own ; 

With sounds, that on the ear 
Fall, like the voice of kindred gone. 

Cut oft" in Youth's career! 

Ask of the gales that sweep abroad, 

When Sunset's fiery wall 
Is crowned with many a painted cloud, 

A gorgeous coronal ; 



OLLAPODIANA. 115. 

Ask why their wings are trembling thea 

O'er Nature's sounding lyre, 
While the far occidental hills 

Are bathed in golden fire ? ^ 

Oh ! shall the wide world raise the song 

Of peace, and joy, and love. 
And shall man's heart not bid his tongue 

In voiceful praises move ? 
Shall the old forest and the wave, 

When summon'd by the breeze. 
Yield a sweet flow of solemn praise, 

And man have less than these ? 

No one, I fancy, can regard the wonderful mechanism of the 
heavens, or the revolutions of this goodly frame the earth, without 
emotion. I at least cannot. When I behold the moon, coursing 
her sweet and mysterious way through the azure vault of evening, 
or the sun, mounting from his golden tabernacle of morning 
clouds, to smile from the zenith upon a beautiful world, I am 
filled with wonder and admiration. The coming on of Spring, 
the advent and departure of Summer, are to me scenes and 
themes of amazing thought. Then, how solemnly does Autumn 
come on ; rustling his sallow leaf, and shaking his withered 
spray, in token that Winter is near ! telling the heart, as Words- 
worth does the eye, that 

' Summer ebbs ; each day that follows, 

Is a reflux from on high, 
Tending to the darksome hollows. 
Where the frosts of Winter lie.' 



I VALUE every season as it afibrds me subjects for reflection. 
New- Year's day is fruitful of thought. Standing upon the 
threshold of a cycle, we look forward with questioning eyes into 
the unknown future, wondering what it may bring to us of weal 
or wo. Merciful is the cloud that hangs over that untrodden 
way ; grateful the uncertainty which begirts its uninvestigated 
span. Methinks it adds a fresher glow to that social communion 
wherewith we greet the opening year ; that it gives to love a 
holiness, to friendship a charm. 1 would that the time-honored 
custom of Gotham might be extended through the Atlantic cities ; 
that friends might be gathered together around each other's fire- 
sides at the morning of the year, there to renew the sweet feel- 
ings and generous sympathies of life. 

It is the renewal of precious and holy feelings, that makes the 
new year in New-York so delightful. The citizens bid a truce 



116 OLLAPODIANA. 

to care ; and the generous principle of friendship comes fully 
into play. To tell the truth, the custom begins to radiate from 
the commercial metropolis, and its delights, ' like flower-seeds by 
the far winds sown,' are already springing up in other towns. I 
had a taste of them at the commencement of this present year, 
in the Rectangular City ; enough to convince me that the mode 
is germinating freely, and will soon abundantly fructify. It fell 
on the day that I had some dozen friends to visit ; and the em- 
ployment was truly a New-York affair, altogether. One hospi- 
table household, well known for the kindness of its members, 
and the regal bounty of its domestic appointments, conducted 
the matter in veritable Gotham style. On a table which groan- 
ed — if mahogany can groan — with its burden, were placed all 
sorts of rich edibles, and copious excellences of great variety, 
in the way of potation. Many were the pleasant-tasted things 
that reminded me, through the interpretation of the palate, that I 
might consider myself in New-York ; and as, for the nonce, ' I 
drained huge draughts of Rhenish down,' I can assure the reader 
that the American London was ' in my flowing cups freshly re- 
membered.' Great, however, is the stability of my brain ; and 
so it was, that I escaped without injury ; though I do religiously 
believe, that should ' some persons' imbibe thus much of things 
spiritual and substantial, their footsteps would indicate a know- 
ledge of the curvilinear zig-zag. 

It is right wholesome to me, to perceive the effect of the new 
year on an old bachelor. His forehead wears less wrinkles then, 
and that part to which phrenologists assign the organ of benevo- 
lence, seemeth to bulge, as it were* with a preternatural expan- 
sion. He becometh frisky ; ' takes much to imbibe,' and thinks 
seriously of changing his condition. I never knew but one, that 
the new year could not revivify, and he was a biped whom long 
years of ' scoundrelizing' had indurated, in the region of the 
heart, to perfect ossification. The sarcophagus of a mummy, or 
the flesh of a patriarchal turkey, the cock of his peculiar walk of 
life, could not be harder. I met him, ' the first of last January 
was a. year,'' as they say in Brotherly Love. ' Well, Tompkins,' 
said I, ' your bosom friend Jones has been swept away, within 
the past year, into the vortex of matrimony.' ' Yes,' said he, 
with some such a grin as Satan may have shed upon Ithuriel in 
Paradise ; ' yes ; Tom has gone, and I am glad of it. I don't 
know why I should be, though ; for he never did me any injury !' 
He sported this remark for a new year's original ; yet, hke his 
wig, I believe it was not natural, but borrowed for the occasion. 



OLLAPODIANA. 117 

It is diverting in the extreme to observe the pompous grandil- 
oquence in the advertisements of the amusement-furnishing pub- 
lic, about Christmas and New- Year. SubUmity glares from the 
theatrical hand-bill, and the menagerie arffiche. Curiosities, then, 
have a ' most magnanimous value.' I remember, not long ago, 
that I desired a lovely lady, a French countess, to accompany 
me to a Zoological Institute, to behold a7i American Eagle. I 
was pleased at the expressed wish which led me to make the in- 
vitation, and proud of the prospect of showing a living emblem 
of our country's insignia to one who felt an interest in the sub- 
ject. The bills of the institute set forth, that * the grand Colum- 
bia's Eagle was the monarch of its tribe, measuring an unprece- 
dented length from the tip of one wing to the other, in full 
plumage, and vigor.' The countess had never seen but one 
eagle, in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and that was a small 
one, and ungrown ; so that her anticipations of novelty were as 
great as mine. We went, and with interesting expectancy, asked 
of the president of the institute, who was engaged in the noble 
pursuit of feeding a sick baboon with little slips of cold pork, to 
discover to us ' Columbia's eagle.' He marshalled us to the 
other end of the institute, past the cages of hons, bears, libbards, 
and other animals — among which was a singular qtiadrtiped, 
with six legs — to the cage of the eagle. ' There,' he exclaimed, 
with professional monotony, ' there is the proud bird of our 
country, that was caught i?i the West, and has been thought to 
have killed many animals i7i his life-time. He was five hours 
and twenty-three minutes in being put into the cage, so strong 
was his wings. Look at him clus. He '11 bear inspection. Jist 
obsarve the keen irisk of his eye.' 

An involuntary and hearty laugh from us both, followed the 
sight, and the announcement. It was a dismal looking bird, 
about the size of a goodly owl, with a crest-fallen aspect, the 
feathers of the tail and wings dwindled to a few ragged quills ; 
and the shivering fowl, standing on one leg, looked with a vacant, 
spectral eye at his visiters. Nothing could be so perfectly bur- 
lesque, and we enjoyed it deeply and long. I shall never be de- 
ceived by show-bills again. 

Apropos of holidays. To the young and light-hearted, they 
are what they seem. To those who have passed the purple and 
flowery boundaries of minority, that ' infancy' of law, they are 
forbidden gardens of pleasure, whose fruitage is only for the eye. 
To the adult, it is a season of preparation for the payment of 
bills — or Williams, as they should be more classically denomi- 



118 OLLAPODIANA. 

nated — that fall due on or about the first of the year. These 
absorb his soul. The mercer, the hottier, the manufacturer of 
those glossy receptacles which environ the chamber of the soul, 
all such send in their accumulated williams, until the sight thereof 
astounds the receiver. Forthwith he sets about defraying the 
same ; and great is his satisfaction when he says eureka ! of their 
end. I have a ' contemporary,' if he be yet ahve, sojourning in 
foreign lands, who was once visited, about Christmas, by the 
senior of the firm of ' Wright, Wright and Wiggins, mercers, 
drapers, and fabricators of good habits.' The elder of the 
house — a fat and burly biped, with a turnip countenance, and 
nose of extraordinary redness — bore to Wilkins his bill. Wil- 
kins was oblivious. 

' Can you tell me, my dear Sir, where you have ever seen me 
before ?' 

'Certainly — yes. Sir — lean. You are a customer of ours, 
at street, 27. Here 's your bill.' 

' Ah — so it is : Wright, you are right. But, my dear Sir, 
there is one trifling circumstance connected with this bill, which 
makes it a little awkward. I have not the wherewithal to setde 
it. This is the only obstacle in the way, at present. I do not 
quote often ; but you will perhaps allow me, on this occasion, to 
observe, in the language of the cockney to Mathews' cab-driver : 
' I han't not got no money whatsomdever ; on the contrary, it is 
quite the rewaase.' Beside, my friend, I have a plan from which 
I never depart, in the cancelling of my leger-liabilities. I pay 
my blank-book demands ali)hahetically . Your firm is Wright, 
Wright and Wiggins. The plan strikes you, I see, visibly ; and 
its propriety is as clear, seemingly, to you, as the light on a lily, 
in the spring-time, or the glow on the red side of a bursted 
peach, in October. The divine thought touches you nearly, and 
you acquiesce, evidently. Adios, my friend : as soon as I 
reach your name in my payments, some ten months hence, I will 
advise you promptly, l^say this, with a difficult nerve ; but I 
trust you twig me decidedly. I mean as I say. Good morn- 
ing — good morning !' 

Reader, since I last communed with thee, the despot Sick- 
ness has held me in subjection. I have had dull days, and weary 
nights ; but my books have been companions, and I have had, 
beside, friends and newspapers. I mention this thing, partly to 
excuse my brevity, and lack of variety, and also as a prelude to 
this piece of advice : Lend not thy umhreUa, nor suffer thou it to 
be stolen from thee. In this wise, did I procure my indisposi- 



OLLAPODIANA. 119 

tion. The night was dark, the rains descended ; the floods came, 
and beat ajrainst me; the umbrella was loaned — it has never 
come home. Heaven forgive the borrower ! There are some 
who do not even borrow this in-rainy-weather-much-to-be-desired- 
and-requisite article. They steal it, without compunction. I 
lately heard a man of God, at a Wesleyan conventicle, deliver 
the following speech from the altar : ' I would ad'nounce to the 
cod'ngregation, that, prebably hij mistake, there was left at this 
house of prayer, this morning, a small cotton umbrella, much 
damaged by time and tear, and of an exceeding-??/ pale blue 
color, in the place whereof was taken a very large black silk 
umbrella, new, and of great beauty. I say, my brethren, it was 
prebably by mistake, that of these articles, the one was taken and 
the other left ; though it is a very improper mistake, and should 
be discountenanced, if possible. Blunders of this sort, brethren 
and sisters, ai-e getting a leetle too common !' 
Fas encore, a -presejit, cher lecteur. 



NUMBER ELEVEN. 

March, 1836. 

Glorious Bellini ! I have been listening for many pleas- 
ant evenings past, to the sweet creations of that composer's mind. 
How sad that he died so young ! Only twenty-eight, when the 
shroud Avas wrapped around his bosom, and his tuneless ear laid 
beneath the coffin-lid ! But the harmonies he conceived, will 
linger in holy sweetness, while taste shall last ; and many an un- 
born enthusiast will yet live to bless his name. How touching 
and beautiful are the tender sentences that drop in melody from 
the lips of Count Rodolpho, in La Somjiamhula ! With what a 
divine diapason do the following words, and the chorus that ac- 
companies them, fall on the ear ! The^ are the by-gone thoughts 
of one who has long been absent from his youthful home, on 
again finding himself amidst the well known scenes of his dear 
native village. Filled with melancholy rapture at the sight of 
that which he has gained, and troubled with recollections of what 
he has lost, he exclaims : 

' Scenes of Beauty ! full well I know ye — 
Many moments of joy I owe ye ; 

Of pleasures banished, 

Of days long vanished ; 
Oh ! my breast is filled with pain, 
Finding objects, that still remain, 
While those days come not again '' 



120 OLLAPODIANA. 

I know not how it is, but that last line haunts my ear contin- 
ually. Reader, if you are now old, you have once been young ; 
if young, you know what I mean, when I speak of that Golden 
Age, our early days. Time, as we pass onward to that outer 
gate which swings open into eternity, may give us many enjoy- 
ments, but they are satisfaction merely ; tame, passive satisfac- 
tion. Troubles fall upon us like a brutum fulmen ; incidents 
that would stir the young heart to sympathy and sorrow, occur to 
the middle-aged without notice or distress. How often have I 
read, with supreme delight, that beautiful poem of Gray's, sug- 
gested by a survey of his boyhood's school, and the scenes it 
embraced, at Eton : 

'Ah! happy hills — ah! pleasing shades, 

Ah ! fields, beloved in vain, 
Where once my careless childhood stray'd, 

A stranger yet to pain ! 
I feel the gales that from ye blow 
A momentary bliss bestow, 

As waving fresh their gladsome wing, 

My weary soul they seem to sooth, 
And redolent of joy and youth, 

To breathe a second Spring.' 

For my own part, I love to renew the memories of my fresher 
hours, at all times. I am glad to escape from the present to the 
past ; for we know what we have been in happiness, but not 
what we shall be. Give me a draft on the great bank of by-gone 
time, rather than on the future. Truth to say, however, a coun- 
try life is no scene in which to gain a taste for music. I know 
this well. The splendid opera, the gay assembly, the intoxi- 
cating waltz, are there almost unknown. How imperceptibly 
does our admiration of an opera grow upon us ! Sound after 
sound, solo after solo, duet after duet, fall upon the ear as if they 
were trifles ; by-and-by we love them ; they adhere to our 
thoughts — we deem them divine. They associate themselves 
with early recollections : we think of the golden evening sunlight 
that played upon the landscapes of youth ; of early affections 
and hopes ; of the loving ones that are distant — the dear ones 
that have died. Precious in the human soul, is the fountain of 
remembrance ! 

But a taste for music may be carried too far. I hate your 
singing bore, your man of crotchets and quavers, with big eyes, 
who is evermore seeking an opportunity to execute his song ; 
who troubles diners-out for their insincere applause, and mis- 
taking jest for praise, tunes his throat anew, runs up his voice 



OLLAPODIANA. 121 

into the affected falsetto, and discourses ill-timed harmonies, in 
the tone of ' the eunuch's pipe !' 1 hate such bipeds, ah imo 
jpectore. I dislike, also, discordant associations for music. They 
are like Thespian societies — great afflictions. I once had a 
friend — a highly respectable youth, of excellent family — who 
acquired a penchant for doing the Roscius, in a small dramatic 
volunteer company. He did enact many parts, and was some- 
times vehemently applauded by the free-admission boobies who 
flocked to such exhibitions. At last he became stage-mad, step- 
ped incontinently into the buskin, made a western tour, and re- 
turned to his native city, a legitimate loafer, with all the external 
credentials of that multitudinous tribe. I encountered him not 
many months ago, negotiating with the landlord at a hotel, where 
I called to greet a travelling friend, in the following words : ' I 
say, publican, mayhap you know me not. I am every inch a 
king. As Shakspeare says, ' I am myself alone,' and was n't 
Shakspeare a screamer ? What I wish to say, can be told 
shortly. ' Much misery can be let on in a few words,' as Mrs. 
Haller says in the Stranger. I am a litde confused just now ; 
for truth to tell, I have taken a little potation this morning : but 
though I seem confused, I know you will look it over, from one 
who is really ' more sinned against than sinning.' What I wish 

to say is this. You know me. I am the son of General , 

a well known, but not a ' greasy cidzen.' I wish to make ar- 
rangements with you for the purchase of a glass of eau de vie, at 
a liberal credit. I throw myself upon your indulgence, and so- 
licit straight for the privilege of 'running my face' for the liquor 
aforesaid. Will you comply? Do for once — just for gran- 
deur.' 

The publican, after complimenting the father of the prodigal, 
respectfully declined, and the votary of Thespis abdicated. 

Speaking of the music which is apt ordinarily to greet one's 
ears in the country, the tuneful Beattie, in his Minstrel, discour- 
seth thereupon with most melodious unction. It is indeed sweet, 
as he avers, to listen to the harmonies of morning, when the sun 
sits upon the highmost hill of journey ; when the freshness of 
night mingles with the bland atmosphere of the day ; when the 
groves are vocal, and the floods clap their hands. But there is 
much more music in a city, notwithstanding we miss therein 
that magnificent organ-sound of commingling woods and waters 
which give their voices to the gale ; that grand and viewless in- 
strument, whose ventiges are governed by the fingers of the 
Eternal. The denizen of a metropolis must have indeed a busy 



122 OLLAPODIANA. 

ear, to devour all the musical discourse with which the air at 
morning is rife around him. In the town of Brotherly Love — 
I speak to those who know — what sounds vibrate upon the tym- 
panum ! Who has not heard the sable vender of ground corn 
exclaim : 'Come and buy my ho-mi-ny — oh, ye-ep !' — or the 
improvisatore who sells 

' Brick-dust from Brandy wine, 
Both ni-i-ce and fi-n-ne !' 

Or that peripatetic individual who goeth about with his axe and 
wedges, keeping time as they strike together, to the sonorous 
ejaculation: ' Ah 'split- wood !' These are familiar minstrels; 
and those who pass them in the street — especially if they are 
interested — listen attentively while the speech drops upon them. 



Many chapters have been written against early rising in cities. 
I like it much in theory, but it is detestable in practice. In the 
country, 'tis a joy to rise early. Once, under some casual in- 
spiration, from this cause, I scribbled thus. Reader, take it for 
better or for worse : 

STANZAS. 

' Awake psaltery and harp : I myself will awake early* 

Wake, when the mists of the bhie mountains sleeping. 

Like crowns of glory in the distance lie ; 
When breathins from the Soiith, o'er blossoms sweeping, 

The gale bears music through the sunnv sky ; 
While lake and meadow, upland, grove and stream, 
Smile like the glory of ati Eden dream. 

Wake while unfettered thoughts, like treasures springing, 

Bid the heart leap v/ithin its prison-cell ; 
When birds and brooks through tlie pure air are flinging 

The mellow chant of their beguiling spell; 
When earliest winds their anthems have begun. 
And, inceuse-laden, their sweet journeys run. 

Then, psaltery and harp, a tone awaken, 

Whereto the echoing bosom shall reply. 
As earth's rich scenes, by shadowy night forsaken, 

Unfold their beauty to the filling eye: 
When, like the restless breeze, or wild-bird's lay, 
Pure thoughts, on dove-like pinions, float away. 

Wake thou, too, man, when from refreshing slumber, 

And thy luxurious couch, thou dost arise. 
Thanks for life's golden gifts — a countless number — 

Calm dreams, and soaring hopes, and summer skies : 
Wake ! — let thy heart's fine chords be touched in praise. 
While the pure light of morn around thee plays.' 



OLLAPOUIANA. 123 

But much as I love the waking of the morning, I love also its 
rest. Of all visions, those are loveliest which come upon our 
imaginations in the morning watch. Already fresh and invigor- 
ated with rest, the mind revels in its fanciful creations. How 
many golden cities, and glorious landscapes, and worlds of 
changeful waters, flecked with green and blue, have I seen in my 
dreams ! Oh delicious Sleep ! Thou art indeed the world's 
Spanish cloak, and with thy sister Night, thou wrappest the care- 
worn bosom in indolent repose. Republican and Democratic 
Sleep ! Thou hast no predilections for parties. Thou de- 
scendest as soon upon an old Federalist, as his opponent — upon 
a Mason or an anti-]Mason, as upon the tabby that slumbers by 
the farmer's fire. Thou hast no balm for favorites, save that thy 
wing is spread the soonest over the brow of the husbandman, and 
the heart of the weary. Thou art terrible alone to the over-rich 
and the over-guilty. To the dyspeptic maid, whose nights are 
spent in the dissipation of parties, and amidst the hot air of 
crowded assemblies^ — to her thou art a burden. To the young, 
the gay, the countr^born, thou art altogether delightsome. 



There is one place where sleep is uncomely — namely, in a 
church. But, dear reader, there are some somniferous men of 
God, whose words fall upon you like so many poppies. Their 
languid sentences come from the ' ancient nose, all spectacle-be- 
strid,' w'ith such a drowsy twang, that they are irresistible stupi- 
fiers. I listened of late to such a one. He never finished a 
sentence. ' INfy friends,' he would say, ' I wish to address you 
upon the importance of. It is a subject of great importance, 
and it is one lohich. When 1 say that it is subject of importance, 
I mean to infer that it is important to the individual who. And 
when that individual declines observing this subject, he has reach- 
ed that state of moral turpitude, whe7i. Hence we view, that he 
becomes associated with those that, on account of the deceitful- 
ness of the world, are corrupted by /' 



If you do not doze, reader, over that last sentence, I shall be 
prepared hereafter to repay your lively spirit with better things. 
This cold winter has congealed all my better thoughts. I shall 
thaw into soul and sentiment, when the spring-time comes. 



1S4 OLLAVODIANA. 



NUMBER TWELVE. 

Apra, 1836. 

I CONCEIVE it a great plague to be one's own hero, and to be 
the describer in the first person singular of individual adventures. 
Those two great personages, Says He and Says I, are no par- 
ticular favorites of mine. They are great draw-backs in these 
my sketches ; for, reader, I am, at bottoiil, a modest and retiring 
man. Therefore should I desire in papers like these, were it 
right practicable, to sink the personal, and expand into the general. 
Reflection convinces me, howbeit, that this w^ould not do. What 
I have to say, or to sketch, would then be without form and void. 
No ; give me my way ; let me disport as I will, and I warrant 
me there shall be somethhig in what 1 write, which will warm the 
heart, or light the eye of him that reads me. 



Talking of a man's making a hero of himself, reminds me 
of an old friend of mine, who is fond of telling long stories about 
fights and quarrels that he has had in his day, and who always 
makes his hearer his opponent for the time, so as to give effect 
to what he is saying. Not long ago I met him on 'Change, at a 
business hour, when all the commercing multitudes of the city 
were together, and you could scarcely turn, for the people. The 
old fellow fixed his eye on me ; there was a fatal fascination in 
it. Getting off without recognition, would have been unpardon- 
able disrespect. In a moment, his finger was in my button-hole, 
and his rheumy optics glittering with the satisfaction of your true 
bore, when he has met with an unresisting subject. 1 listened to 
his common-places with the utmost apparent satisfaction. Di- 
rectly, he began to speak of an altercation which he once had 
with an officer in the navy. He was relating the particulars, 
' Some words,' said he, ' occurred between him and me. Now 
you know that he is a much younger man than I am ; in fact, 
about yovr age. Well, he ' made wse of an expression'' which I 
did not exactly like. Says I to him, says I, ' What do you mean 
by that ?' ' Why,' says he to me, says he, ' I mean just what I 
say.' Then I began to burn. There was an impromptu eleva- 
tion of my personal dandriff, which was unaccountable. I 
didn't waste words on him ; I just took him in this way,' (here 
the old spooney suited the action to the word, by seizing the collar 
of my coat, before the assemblage,) ' and says I to him, says I, 



OLLAPOBIANA. 125 

* You infernal scoundrel, I will punish you for your insolence on 
the spot.!' and the manner in which I shook him (just in this 
way) was really a warning to a person similarly situated.' 

I felt myself at this moment in a beautiiul predicament : in the 
midst of a large congregation^ of business people ; an old gray- 
headed man hanging, with an indignant-look, at my coat-coUar ; 
and a host of persons looking on. The old fellow's face grew 
redder every minute ; but perceiving that he was observed, 
he lowered his voice in the detail, while he lifted it in the 
worst places of his colloquy. ' \ ou infernal scoundrel, and 
caitiff, and villain,' says I, ' what do you mean, to insult an elderly 
person like myself, in a public place like this '?' and then, said 
he, lowering his malapropos voice, ' then I shook him., so.'' 

Here he pushed me to and fro, with his septuagenarian gripe 
on my collar, as if instead of a patient, much bored friend, 1 
was his deadly enemy. When he let go, I found myself in a 
ring of spectators. ' Shame, shame ! to insult an old man like 
him!' was the general cry. 'Young puppy!' sai^ an .elderly 
merchant, whose good opinion was my heart's desire, 'what 
excuse have you for your conduct ?' 

Thus was I made a martyr to my good feelings. I have never 
recovered from the stigma of that interview. I have been pointed 
at in the street by persons who have said as I passed them, 

' That 's the young chap that insulted old General , at 

the Exchange !' 

This same venerable gentleman once troubled me with his 
augur-ies, in the following manner. He accosted me, up town, 
a mile, I suppose, from the Exchange. ' My good friend,' he 
said, ' I wish you to go with me to the City Reading Itoom, and 
look at a contribution that I have published in one of the news- 
papers. I dare say it is open to criticism. Mind you, I am not 
a man of letters. 1 am doing a snug, winding-up business in my 
latter days, and I cannot serve two masters.' I accompanied 
him : he sought out the paper file, and after much research, 
turned to the following : 

' Shad. — Now landing, several barrels of Shad. The barrels is new, and 
the shad are fresh. For sale by , No. 85 street.' 

' Now,' said he, ' will you tell we whether ' barrels is' is right? 
Don't you think I ought to have used the subjunctive mood in 
the future tense, and said ' the barrels are,' and cetera ? I don't 
feel sure, myself; I just want your opinion. I hioic, you know ; 
but I want to be positive.' 



126 OLLAPODIANA. 

I elucidated the matter to him as plainly as I could, and left 
him ; inly resolving, that if ever I saw him approaching me in 
the street again, I would take to my heels and run like an ex- 
press to get out of his way. 

I SHOULD like to write a chapter on lores. There are distinct 
classes of them, and it requires a philosophical mind to furnish 
proper analyses of the varying genus. The man, for instance, 
who meets you going to bank, or to dinner, and begins to talk 
to you of matters and things in general, whereunto you are, for 
politeness' sake, compelled to listen, what a plague he is, to be 
sure ! He has no heart. He listens to the loquacity of your 
diaphragm with perfect composure, though it speak of wants un- 
satisfied, and viands in expectancy. He holdeth converse with 
nonentity ; he keepeth you in suspense, by leaving his sentences 
unfinished ; and he taxeth your imagination with wonder as to 
what the devil he will have to say next. You go home to a late 
and cold dinner, with your whole body in a state of grumbling 
dissatisfaction. You feel as if you could knock down your 
grandfather. In short, you feel as every man does, when he has 
been bored. It is an awful sensation. Sea-sickness is pleasure 
to it. Should I hereafter describe this class, I fear I shall give 
them a Rembrandt coloring ; for I am confident, from the wrongs 
they have done me, that 1 could not speak of them with my 
customary coolness and impartiality. 

By-the-by, the word impartiality reminds me of a legal 
biped, who possessed this quality ' to a degree.' Reader, you 
don't know the Hon. Abednego Babcock, do you ? Taking it 
for granted that you do not, I will describe him to you. Like 
Wouter Van Twiller, he is about five feet six inches high, and 
six feet five inches in circumference. He potates considerably, 
and in that way has nursed for himself a nasal organ of most 
scarlet rubicundity. It is a sign, as I call it, of ' grog manifest 
in the flesh.' He is a man of many friends among pot-house 
lawyers and small politicians. He has never been known, I be- 
lieve, to give a decided opinion on any subject. I once heard 
him charge a jury something after this fashion : 

' Gentlemen : This is an action bixnight by the plaintiff against 
the defendant. You have heard the evidence on both sides, and 
the court know of no points of law that you may not be supposed 
to understand already. The case is a very plain one ; and if, 
upon a careful review of the testimony, you should think the 



OLLAPODIANA. 127 

plaintiff entitled to a verdict, the decision must be in his favor ; 
but if, on the contrary, it should appear that the defendant ought 
to be the plaintiff in this suit, you will please bring in a bill to 
that effect. I believe that is about all that is to be said in the 
matter. If you can think of any thing else that I ought to say, 
I have no objection to mention it. It is now my dinner hour. 
Swear a constable.' 

This was the usual impartiality of Abednego Babcock, Esq. 
He would sit for hours on the bench, feeling the customary blos- 
soms on his nose with his affectionate fingers ; an employment 
which evidently gave him great satisfaction. They do say that 
whenever a flatulent attorney speaks before him, he drops right 
to sleep. He says a hundred yards of gab, as he classically 
calls it, could not change his mind, when he has it made up. 
He despises every thing high-flown, or, as he sometimes terms 
it, hijphejjlutenatcd ; and thinks that, in nine cases out of ten, 
a cause can be best decided by hearing only one side. 



Apropos of the bar. What a deal of bad oratory there is 
about it ! I have one or two good friends among the lawyers in 
Gotham who could depict these grandiloquent attorneys to the 
life. How much verbose pomposity of language, too, do you 
find in the pulpit, where, of all other places, it is most out of 
place. A few days ago, I heard an unhewn ' Ambassador from 
the court of Heaven,' as he credential ized himself, who had 
taken the far west in his route to the church where I heard him, 
use the following burst. He was speaking of Judas and Bene- 
dict Arnold ; worthies whom he compared together. ' Arnold,' 
said he, ' was a traitor, of whom you may have heard, who tried 
for to sell his ked'ntrij. It was the ruination of him, and for what 
he do7ie, he will be rewarded with infamy ; for his name will 
sertingly go down to the most remotest posterity, kivered all over 
with Hell's arsenic !' Here he looked round upon his audience 
with an air of pride, as if he would say, ' There 's a touch for 
you !' 

Speaking of clerical oratory, bids me think of an event I wit- 
nessed lately in an Episcopal conventicle. The morning service 
had been said ; the rich tones of the organ were mellowing away 
into silence, when the speaker arose, and named his text, in these 
simple words : ' Jesus wcpt.^ He spoke in a strain of touching 
simplicity ; he painted the sorrows of the Savior at the death 
of Lazarus ; and he described in beautiful language the propriety ' 



128 OLLAPODIANA. 

of his grief, by enlarging upon tliat inevitable condition of mor- 
tality which causes all to grieve. By and by I heard a fainl 
moan. A young and tenj^er-hearted mother, who had but a few 
weeks before buried a blooming daughter, the darling of her love, 
overcome by her feelings, had fainted away. But it was no bois- 
terous or harrowing language, that thus stirred within her the holy 
fountain of a mother's affection. It was the words of simplicity 
that fell upon her ear, and trembled in her bosom. The circum- 
stance revived in my mind the memory of a sermon — the off- 
spring of untutored genius — which I heard in early youth. 
The preacher was an unlettered woodsman, but he spoke with 
correctness, with eloquence. The occasion was the funeral of a 
child. The boy, a lad of four or five years old, lay on the bier 
before him ; His fair cheeks had not lost their rosy red, and his 
little form, so decently composed in the white garments of the 
grave, looked far too dainty for the earth to cover. The speaker 
took his text from the touching story of Gehazi and the Shuna- 
mite. 1 forget the place where it is to be found. ' And he said 
to the mother, Is it well with thee ? Is it well with thy husband ? 
Is it well with thy child ? And she answered. It is well.'' He 
went on to show his hearers, that in the case before them, it was 
* well with the child :' and beautifully did he prove it. My heart 
swells yet, at the mere remembrance of that sermon. ' Mother,' 
he said, ' do you mourn for the child that has fallen like a blos- 
som from your arms ? Weep not, for it is icell. He has escaped 
the darkness of earthly sorrow ; the clouds that day by day 
would have rolled gradually over his spirit ; the crosses of exis- 
tence ; the gloom that follows after that golden age, ere the life 
of life begins to fail and fade ; he has missed all these, and in 
that ' better country,' where his Father and on?- Father smiles 
upon him, his innocent spirit is at rest. Fond mother ! distrust not 
thy God. Lift thy heart-warm prayer to Him in the night- 
watches ; and as thou implorest consolation, thou mayest ask thy 
God, ' Is it well with my child V and soft as Heavenly num- 
bers, sweet as the music of an angel's lyre, He will answer, ' It 
is well.'' 



*'have remembered this sermon, fondly and long. The 
preacher was such a man as William Wirt once described, only 
he was not blind. He was tall, and of goodly presence, with a 
venerable snowy head, and an eye that beamed with benignity 
and good will to men. Upon returning home, with my heart full 
of the discourse I had heard, I wrote thus : 



OLLAPODIANA. 129 

THE EARLY DEAD. 

* Why mourn for the Young ? Better that the light cloud should fade away in tKe 
morning's breath, than travel through the weary day, to gather in darkness, and end 
in storm.' Bulwer. 

If it be sad to mark the bow'd with age 
Sink in the halls of the remorseless tomb, 

Closing the changes of life's pilgrimage 

In the still darkness of its mouldering gloom ; 

Oh ! what a shadow o'er the heart is flung, 

When peals the requiem of the loved and young 

They to whose bosoms, like the dawn of spring 

To the unfolding bud and scented rose. 
Comes the pure freshness age can never bring, 

And fills the spirit with a rich repose. 
How shall we lay them in their final rest; 
How pile the clods upon their wasting breast? 

Life openeth brightly to their ardent gaze ; 

A glorious pomp sits on the gorgeous sky ; 
O'er the broad world Hope's smile incessant plays, 

And scenes of beauty win the enchanted eye; 
How sad to break the vision, and to fold 
Each lifeless form in earth's embracing mould ! 

Yet this is Life I To mark from day to day, 
Youth, in the freshness of its morning prime. 

Pass, like the anthem of a breeze away ; 

Sinking in waves of Death, ere chilled by Time ' 

Ere yet dark years on the warm cheek had shed 

Autumnal mildew o'er its rose-like red ! 

And yet what mourner, though the pensive eye 
Be dimly-thoughtful in its burning tears, 

But should with rapture gaze upon the sky. 

Through whose far depths the spirit's wing careers ? 

There gleams eternal o'er their ways are flung. 

Who fade from earth while yet their years are young ! 



Children are queer subjects to write about. I know several 
little friends of mine, that I can never believe will be grown up 
wrinkled men and women. Will that little beauty become an 
old woman ? I '11 not believe it. Will that boy, now shooting 
his marble, or drawing his sled in winter, will he become a 
portly-looking man, with a stern temper, a fat abdomen, and a 
big bunch of watch-keys hanging just beneath his waistcoat ? 
Will he wear spectacles, and a cane ? It seems impossible, but 
it must be. There must be an end to every thing ; to youth, to 
its tastes, and its associations. 

9 



130 OLLAPODIANA. 

Reader, I do not wish to twaddle ; but there can be no harm 
in announcing to you, that in my meridian the ' spring time of 
the year is coming.' There is a soft, bland iufluence in the air, 
which comes over the spirit like the rush of an angel's wing, fill- 
ing it with fresh and happy thoughts. 1 can see the trees from 
my window, bursting into verdure ; and the thousand voices of 
the city seem sweeter to my ear. We have had a stormy winter 
and a long ; and those were horrid North-easters that blew along 
the Atlantic coast, what time, vexed widi our Yankee euroclydon, 
(and we occasionally get up a passing good one,) ' the sea 
wrought and was tempestuous.' liut now, the winter is over and 
gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the singing 
of the birds is come ; and the voice of the turtle is heard in the 
land : not the ' torkle upon yander's tree,' of which I made a 
iate quotation from a bard of Pennsylvania ; but those which 
iv'dUani and coo, with their beautiful necks, on the house-tops. 
(I hate the word biU, for many reasons.) The chimney-sweep 
stays longer in the quiet sunshine on his brick tower ; the spirit 
of spring is in his brush, and his song is louder. Commend me 
to Spring. It is the gem of the seasons, beyond dispute. 



Talking of disputes, sends into my mind the thought of a 
good-hearted acquaintance, who really thinks that he is immense 
in controversy. He will overcome you with words, and though 
they have but little argument in them, yet I have never known a 
person to commence a colloquy with him who was not ' worsted.' 
He will go from Dan until thou come to Beersheba, just to com- 
pass a hard word, which he lugs in as a j)uzzler. If his oppo- 
nent tells him he does not know what he means by such words, he 
will come down upon him with the sweeping conclusion that such 
ignorance is a proof that he is not a fit antagonist. Lately, he 
was riding in the stage with a motley collection of passengers, in 
the interior of a neighboring state. By degrees the party became 
chatty, and our friend was not backward in the lingual exercise. 
The conversation turned upon the merits of Christianity and un- 
belief. There were one or two infidels in the vehicle, who took 
up the cudgels for their side, with more zeal than truth or discre- 
tion. They began to circumvent our traveller, when he stopped 
them short by saying : ' Gentlemen, it is no manner of use for 
you to attempt an argument with me. I have out-talked many 
of your way of thinking ; and I may say, that I never met with 
one yet, who was not glad enough, before I had done with him, 
to^et off by crying copcevl /' He thought this the choice Italian 
for peccaci. It is needless to say, that after this, by common 



OLLAPODIANA. t31 

concession, ' he had the floor.' But bless me ! reader, now I 
think of it, it is time tiiat there should be an end to the present 
number of the lucubrations of your honest friend, Ollapod. 



NUMBER THIRTEEN. 

July, 1836. 

Most people travel a leetle every Summer through these Uni- 
ted States, in sundry portions and quarters thereof; and yet how- 
very few of those who go down upon the sea in ships, or along 
the rail-road or the canal, seeing the sublimities and oddities of 
existence, make any record of them ? Therefore, gentle reader, 
do I propose to enlighten thee, not with sketches of travel, but 
with beneficial hints, whereby thy omnipresent whereabout, as 
thou journeyest, may be regaled. 



We are passing up the Hudson. The low clouds from a hun- 
dred steam-boats are staining the sky in the direction of New 
York, which has long since faded in the distance. The peri- 
patetic colored man, who summons oblivious passengers to 'the 
capting's orifice,' to disburse the swindle for their transit, has not 
yet gone his rounds : there is only the low gurgle of the waves 
ploughed aside by the bow of the steam-boat ; the half-awakened 
company are promenading the deck, and the poetically-disposed 
are looking at the Palisades, whose dark shoulders rise on the 
west bank of the river, as if those barriers could never be re- 
moved, even by the voice of the archangel, and the final trump. 

By-the-way, speaking of the last trumpet, makes me remem- 
ber the reply of a veteran old charcoal man, of Philadelphia, 
well known to the citizens thereof for the sonorousness of his tin 
horn, and the excellence of his commodity. Honest Jimmy 
Charcoal ! — he is removed from among the quick, and num- 
bered with those who have jumped from the shoal of time into 
kingdom come. He was a cheerful, good-hearted citizen ; and 
though he certainly did not move in the first circles, yet he spread 
light and heat wherever he went — not by his person, however; 
for if ever there was a man who looked like a plenipotentiary 
fresh from the court of Tophet, Jimmy was that individual. 
Well, as I have said, he had a most vociferous horn, and unre- 
mitting were the blasts which he protruded through the same upon 



132 OLLAPODIANA. 

the general ear. At last, some evil-disposed citizens, having no 
taste for music, went to his honor the Mayor, and lodged griev- 
ous complaints against tiie distinguished liornist, (I use a musical 
term,) setting forth that he disturbed the public bosom with his 
soul-stirring instrument. After such an accusation, he was 
brought before the great municipal functionary, and received a 
stern and awful reprimand. Jimmy stood the rebuke as if Satan 
had not only allowed him his own color, but also his courage. 
His reply was cogent and conclusive : ' Look here, your honor,' 
said he, ' I ha'nt no disposition, by no means, to complain of 
them 'ere people as has complained of me. Folks in my line can 
bear upwards of considerable in the way of epithets, without 
changing color, or gettin' mad. But I do say, that I axes them as 
charges me with making too much noise in the world, why they 
have got up such an antipathy ag'in' my horn ? And I should 
like to know, if my little tin affair troubles them so now, how 
they will fed when they come to hear the big trumpet, that is to be 
blew at the day of judgment ; calling them, just as likely as not, 
to a coal-hole a mighty sight blacker than the one I come from V 
The Mayor was non-plussed ; and the coal man went twang- 
ing on his ways. The officer could no more stand his logic than 
his opponent could his horn. 



But I digress. Let us get back to the Hudson. Stop, ye 
who travel, one day at West Point. That Cozzens gives noble 
dinners ; his wines are superb ; and the man who likes not crea- 
ture comforts, is a bad member of society. Go thou likewise to 
the Cattskill Mountain House, whence you shall look down be- 
neath the clouds on smiling counties, and towns and cities, spread 
forth as on a map, at your feet. • There,' said Natty Bumpo, 
' you can see — creation ! The Hudson like a ribbon ; the boats 
and sails on its blue and gleaming breast not much larger than 
buoys and handkerchiefs. Oh, 'tis a noble scene ! — and when 
the plains beneath are sweltering in the fervors of Summer ; when 
the snake creeps forth on the rock in the sunshine, and the cattle 
in a thousand meadows consort together under the trees, to 
breathe the air that gathers from the sleepy landscape into their 
branches ; then, at the Mountain House, 't is calm and cool . 
I say, reader, be sure to go there ; and if it is somewhat too cold 
in June, it must be nice in July and August. 



Magnificent are the Cattskills, as seen from the Hudson. 
How their ' broad highland regions' swell and roll in sublime and 
solemn undulations against the sky I How profuse the gushes 



OLLAPODIANA. 133 

of glorious sunlight that chase each other along those lordly 
ridges ! As the boat glides along, these peaks are sometimes hi^ 
from view ; but like great men amid the strifes of parties, or the 
changes of time, they must almost continually impress us with 
their presence, and stand like distant guardians of one of the 
finest rivers in the world, observable, for countless inland leagues, 
overlooking streams, villages, and the grander Hudson, for hun- 
dreds of miles. ' 

Albany is a capital city. If you are a quiet person, enam- 
ored of ease and comfort, go to Cruttenden's, mine host of the 
Eagle. Most delicious is his coflee ; neatest of the neat are his 
rooms ; his bread is like snow ; his viands done to a T ; and 
there is nothing equal to his own personal courtesiea. Pleasant 
things drop continually from his lips, and your ear may drink 
wisdom and wit from them, ' as the honey-bee drinks from the 
rose.' He is the best possible sign of the excellence of his own 
fare. His cheeks are full and healthy, and though his nose is 
not bedecked with those sumptuous red carbuncles which are 
usually supposed the insignia of a true Boniface, yet his figure is 
portly and commanding, and ' his belly is as a round goblet, 
which wanteth not liquor,' as the wise man observes in his Can- 
ticles. 

Let me not be an out-and-outer, as touching Albany, I would 
that my praise should be properly modified. The lower, or busi- 
ness parts of the city, except in the region round about the Eagle, 
are not particularly attractive ; but in the upper quarters, near the 
Capitol Square, and along State-street, few towns in our country 
* can with it compare.' 1 know of no place to which, in some 
respects, could be better applied the lines of Byron : 

' For whoso entereth within this town, 
That sheening far, celestial seems to be. 
Disconsolate will wander up and down, 
Mid many things unsightly to strange e'e.' 

But ascend you to the dome of the City Hall, in Capital Square, 
and look forth upon the scene ! It is beautiful ; that's the word. 
Look at the landscape to the JXorth, heaved up in the glory and 
grandeur of Summer against the sapphire walls of Heaven ; va- 
ried with meadows and harvest-fields, and rural mansions ; ob- 
serve Troy, with its Mount Ida, and the affluent valley of the 
Hudson ; likewise the distant Cattskills ; also the city beneath, 
with those numerous ' white swellings,' or domes, of the steeple 
genus, which have broken out ambitiously all over the town ; 



134 OLLAPODIANA. 

look at these, and at the whole sweep of Capitol Square, and you 
shall meet with great rejoicing of eye. But beware of a person 
whom you may observe in the streets, perambulating about with 
a basket on his arm, vending the sweet-flag root, and barks of 
prickly-ash and slippery-elm. The latter, especially, should you 
partake of it, will cause you to remain a day beyond your time. 
Wonderfully slippery is that article, indeed ; and you would 
think, to hear its owner talk, ' in the way of trade,' that his 
tongue was made of the same material. 



The route to Schenectady is dullish ; but I advise the reader, 
if that personage be a male, to take the outside of the car, (by 
courtesy from the powers that be,) and survey the country round. 
He will see the eternal Cattskills bounding the horizon for near 
two-thirds of the way ; rising like pyramids, blue and lofty into 
Heaven : 

' Where clouds like earthly barriei-s stand 
Or bulwarks of some viewless land.' 

I am discoursing now to the traveller on the Niagara route, 
and therefore I would fling in a word or two of advice to him. 
When thou comest to Schenectaday, thou wilt be grievously 
athirst, if the weather be warm ; but I beseech thee, buy no soda 
water in Old Esopus. One ' lean apothecary' who dwelleth 
hereabout, has an apology for the article ; but drink it not ! It 
is indescribable ; tastes like bad champagne, vinegar, and brim- 
stone. A tumbler full of the Dead Sea would taste sweeter. 
Neither be thou tempted by the boys who vend nuts and ap- 
ples by the packet boat landing. Dishonest, and peddling 
urchins — their commodities are awful! 



The contrast between the spacious cabins of the Hudson 
steamers, and the low narrow boats on the canal, even those of 
the better sort, is unhappily too striking. When you enter the 
latter, resign yourself to fate. You will find captains or superin- 
tendents, who verily believe that there are no other places on 
earth but Schenectady and Utica, and that the rest of creation is 
of small account. They are stupendous persons, on a small 
scale. The idea of having some fifty or sixty individuals, by 
compulsion, in their power every day, gives them a sense of their 
own importance, which nothing can annul ; and the air of gran- 
deur with which they help you to a half-boiled potato, or a 
stinted radish, would befit princes. But do not offend them. 
On the contrary, cause them to believe that you suppose them 
incomparable ; their fare rich beyond description ; their charges 



OLLAPODIANA. 135 

no swindle ; and that you have no exahed opinion of the new 
rail-road to be open in August, and destined to carry passengers 
diree times quicker, and you will get the best they have ; they 
receiving, at the same time, a draft on your eternal gratitude. I 
do not wish to flatter these varlets ; but I do say, that their bills 
ought to be made payable in sluw notes ; namely, paper, payable, 
the first instalment when the debtor dks, and the last half when 
he 1-ises. 

It is rumored that important improvements are in contempla- 
tion by these great men ; among odiers, a novel mode of making 
the public mouth salutary, ' from ?S^orth to South.' This was 
suggested by the following circumstance. A captain was helping 
himself to the tooth-brush of a respectable passenger, who said 
to him : ' What the devil are you doing with my brush and pow- 
der V ' Why,' saicf'the captain, ' I am using it because I thought 
it belonged to the boat, and had been furnished by the company, 
for the use of the i)assengcrs /' 



When you come to Utica, do not be in haste to depart. You 
may kill twenty-four divisions of the common enemy ; nay, forty- 
eight, very agreeably there. Trenton Falls are not far off; 
though it matters little whether you see them before you go to 
Niagara, or on your return. 

But soft ; ' a word or two before you go.' There is a drug- 
shop, kept by an Italian, near the canal, on the right of Genesee 
street, as you proceed to the West, where you can obtain soda 
powders, and eke Seidlitz, of unimpeachable excellence. Buy 
several boxes. They will serve you well on the road to the 
Great Falls ; where, dear reader, you shall meet me anon. 



NUMBER FOURTEEN. 

September, 1836. 

Oh thou who lookest over this page of mine, who participatest 
in the 'portance of the travels' history of Ollapod, listen to me. 
Wouldst thou journey with comfort through the west of New 
York, avoid the canal-boats. At first, when you embark, all 
seems fair ; the eleemosynary negro, who vexes his clarionet, and 
governs its tuneful ventlges, to pay for his passage, seems a very 
Apollo to your ear ; the ajjpointments of the boat appear ample ; 
a populous town slowly glides from your view, and you feel quite 
comfortable and contented. As yet, you have not gone below. 



136 OLLAPODIANA. , 

'Things above' attract your attention — some pretty point of 
landscape, or distant steeple, shining among the summer trees. 
Anon, the scenery becomes tame, and you descend. A feeling 
comes over you as you draw your first breath in the cabin, which 
impels to the holding of your nose. The cabin is full ; you have 
hit your head twice against the ceiling thereof, and stumbled 
sundry times against the seats at the side. Babies, vociferous 
babies, are playing with their mothers' noses, or squalling in 
appalling concert. If you stir, your foot treads heavily upon the 
bulbous toes of some recumbent passenger ; if you essay to sleep, 
the gabble of those around you, or the noisy gurgle of a lock, 
arouses you to consciousness ; and then, if you are of that large 
class of persons in whom the old Adam is not entirely crucified, 
then you swear. Have you any desire for literary entertain- 
ment ? Approach the table. There shall you find sundry tracts ; 
a copy of the Temperance recorder; Goldsmith's Animated Na- 
ture, and Plutarch's Lives. By and by dinner approaches : and 
oh ! how awful the suspense between the hours of preparation 
and realization ! Slowly, and one by one, the dishes appear. 
At long intervals, or spaces of separation from each other — say 
five for the whole length of the boat — you behold tumblers ar- 
ranged, witli two forlorn radishes in each. The butter lies like 
gravy in the plate ; the malodorous passengers of the mascuHne 
gender draw nigh to the scanty board ; the captain comes near, 
to act Ids oft-repeated part, as President of the day. Oh, 
gracious ! 'tis a scene of enormous cry and scanty wool. It 
mendicants description. 



I WAS walking on the deck after dinner ducking my head 
every moment at the cry of *■ Bridge P when the captain joined 
me, and began to relate the perils that he had encountered, during 
his experience on the ' deep waters' over which we were gliding. 
' It is not for every one,' said he, ' to appreciate the perils of an 
official station like mine. That little lad who stands beside you, 
and who, though a stranger to you, seems to have a desire for 
your company, that urchin, could he stay with me ten years, 
would be a sailor like me, and could relate like me his hardships. 
Every year is fruitful of incident. Last year — it was in the 
fall — this canawl was visited with a gale — and such a gale ! Do 
not discredit me, when I say, that, owing to the violence of it, 
nearly a dozen boats were compelled to hug the shore ; and be- 
lieve me, too, when I tell you, that for twenty-five minutes this 
very boat rested upon a sand bank, caused by the entrance of a 
creek. Judge of my feelings at that awful moment ! I ordered 



OLLAPODIANA. 137 

on deck the cook, the steward, and the rest of the crew, together 
with such passengers as were not sound asleep, insensible of 
their danger, and with as much coolness as I could command, 
under the circumstances, I bade them prepare for the worst. 
Two venerable persons of the female sex — old women, as one 
wild young man, whom no danger could appal, denominated 
them — escaped safe to land. Dire terror ruled the hour. The 
winds blew ; the awful ripples dashed against the prow, as if they 
were mad ; and one distracted lady rushed about the deck, in- 
quiring if I had seen her husband, Mr. Smilax Waterhouse. 
Answering her in the negative, I bent my way to what is vulgarly 
called the tail end of the boat. What a sight here met my eye ! 
The two ladies, it is true, had escaped safe to land, but they 
were in a woful plight — one of them having lost her shoe in the 
water, and the other her night-cap. On horrors' head horrors 
accumulated ; and I was on the eve of sinking in despair, with 
no hopes of ever getting ofi' the sand-bar, when deliverance came ! 
A swell from the lock, a few rods above, lifted us from our fear- 
ful situation, and restored us to safety and comfort. 



But the grand charm and scene of a canal packet is in the 
evening. If on your way from Schenectady to Utica, the sun 
goes down into the rosy west, just after you leave that beautiful 
gorge in the Mohawk mountains, where you see the towering 
pines on one side, rising precipitously near three hundred feet 
above you, and on the other, the gentle river, calmly gliding 
through the vale below — forming the only tolerable scene on the 
route. Well, you go below, and there you behold a hot and 
motley assemblage. A kind of stillness begins to reign around. 
It seems as if a protracted meeting were about to commence. 
Clergymen, capitalists, long-sided merchants, who have come 
from far, green-horns, taking their first experience of the wonders 
of the deep on the canawl, all these are huddled together in wild 
and inexplicable confusion. By and by the captain takes his seat, 
and the roll of berths is called. Then, what confusion ! Layer 
upon layer of humanity is suddenly shelved for the night ; and 
in the preparation, what a world of bustle is required ! Boots 
are released from a hundred feet, and their owners deposit them 
wherever they can. There was one man, Ollapod beheld him, 
who pulled off the boots of another person, thinking the while 
— mistaken individual ! — that he was disrobing his own shrunken 
legs of their leathern integuments, so thick were the limbs and 
feet that steamed and moved round about. Another tourist — 
fat, oily, and round — who had bribed the steward for two chairs 



138 OLLAPODIANA. 

placed by the side of his berth, whereon to rest his abdomen, 
amused the assembly by calling out ; ' Here, waiter ! bring me 
another pillow ! I have got the ear-ache, and have put the first 
one into my auricular organ !' Thus wore the hours away. 
Sleep, you can not. Feeble raoschetoes, residents in the boat, 
whose health suffers from the noisome au's they are nightly com- 
pelled to breathe, do their worst to annoy you ; and then, Phoebus 
Apollo ! how the sleepers snore ! There is every variety of this 
music, from the low wheeze of the asthmatic, to the stentorian 
grunt of the corpulent and profound. Nose after nose lifts up its 
tuneful oratory, until the place is vocal. Some communicative 
free-thinkers talk in their sleep, and altogether, they make a con- 
certo and a diapason equal to that which Milton speaks of, when 
through the sonorous organ 'from many a row of pipes, the 
sound-board breathes.' At last, morning dawns ; you ascend 
into pure air, with hair unkempt, body and spirit unrefreshed, 
and show yourself to the people of some populous town into 
which you are entering, as you wash your face in canal water on 
deck, from a hand basin ! It is a scene, I say again, take it for 
all in all, that throws description upon the parish, and makes you 
a pauper in words. ' Ohejam satis P 

You may meet with much edification on board one of these 
craft, in observing the working of what is called human nature. 
At dinner, a sour old bachelor, who had been once a supercargo 
to Smyrna, and then a merciiant in a small way — one who had 
all the stiff formality of a half-cut gentleman, without the educa- 
cation or tact necessary for the composition of even such a 
personage — procured from a basket, which he was taking with 
him on his journey, a bottle of warm champaigne. A country 
friend, with whom he was accidentally travelling, was solicited to 
imbibe the vinous beverage with him. This friend was one of 
those malapropos characters, who, with the best intentions, are 
always saying something wrong. On renewing his glass, he 
said : ' Well now, diis 'ere tastes like something — this arn't like 
the sour cider we get in the country, is it, any how ?' 

' I hope you don't mean,' said the fidgetty host, ' that there is 
anything wrong about it V 

' Oh, not by no means whatsomever. I reckon that it is good. 
Let me give you a toast. Success to American Manufactures .'' 

' Sir,' respondent the ci-devant supercargo, ' what do you 
mean ? Why do you give that toast, of all others ? I ask you 
candidly, is this wine like American manufacture ?' 

* God bless you, neighbor, I didn't mean nothing of that kind ; 



OLLAPODIANA. 139 

and I say, let's drop the subject. \¥ere you ever in NewarkT 

The face of the old fellow assumed the hue of scarlet. Fire 
stood in his eye. He sat down his glass, and looking daggers at 
his friend, observed : 

' 1 don't know what your object is — but you are evidently try- 
ing to insult me. What has Newark to do with this champaigne ? 
Do you suppose it is made there ? Sir, your conduct is out- 
rageous.' 

The countryman sank back against the boat-side, observing 
that he ' wouldn't never attempt to get up a variety in his con- 
versation again.' 

This reminds me of a scene told of Lockport. A clown 
there walked up leisurely to the stall of one of those small 
traders who furnish canal-tourists of limited means with ' wittles 
and drink,' and just as he was on the point of vending a large 
lot of sausages to a hungry-looking traveller, which were to last 
him until his arrival at 13iifFalo, the vagabond, looking suspi- 
ciously at the article, and addressing the seller, said : 

' Is them good sassenges V 

' Yes, they are good sausages, you ignorant ramus. You 
would like to keep me from selling 'em, if you could fix it that 
way, I don't doubt.' 

' No I wouldn't,' responded the loafer ; ' I don't know nothing 
'special about them sassenges ; they may be good sassenges ; I 
don't say they a'nt good sassenges ; all I do say is, that where- 
somever you see them kind o' sassenges, you dojiH see no dogs T 

' I guess, on reflection,' said the traveller, ' that I won't nego- 
tiate for them articles. That man's last remark has gi'n me a 
dislike to 'em.' 

Is it not pleasant to revisit the scenes of one's early days ? 
So silently questioned Ollapod himself, as he journeyed toward 
the West, what time the sun was sinking in the Occident, leaving 
his last rays on those dark forests of pines and cedars which be- 
gird the lake of Oneida, in the Onondaga country. The ' ex- 
clusive extra' performed its locomotive office with wonderful 
rapidity and effect ; the cattle attached thereunto having only the 
labor of drawing ' wife, self, and servant.' 

Pleasant was it to rise at S , in the morning, and walk 

about, gazing at familiar scenes, unvisited for years. Nature, 
sweet nature ! was still the same ; and as I journeyed hurriedly 
round and round, looking upon the pigmy doings of man, com- 
pared with the scenery fashioned by the hand of God, the Spirit 



140 OLLAPODIANA. 

of the past came by, and fanned me with her fairy wings. A 
thousand recollections filled my mind as I perambulated, until I 
chanted, in my trance of memory, a part of a beautiful poem by 
a native bard : 

'I STAND upon my native hills again. 

Broad, round, and green, that in the southern sky, 
With garniture of waving grass and grain, 
Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie.' 

How many events come before the mind like the shadow of a 
dream ! Such was my sojourn in ' the place vvhere I was born.' 
It was short but sweet. 1 found my heart filled with teeming re- 
collections ; everything was new to my eye, but I felt that my 
bosom was unchanged. I have, and I thank my God for the 
possession, feelings and sensibilities, untainted and unworn. In 
my spirit, I can still experience that new7icss of delight which is 
said to wear off" easily by contact with the world. It is not so 
with me. A poem or a scene ; the lapse of a beautiful river, or 
the sheen of a rich woodland or field ; can yield for my mind the 
same fruitage of contentment which it felt and relished in other 
days. For the perpetual presence of this capacity, I am deeply 
and devoutly thankful. I would not exchange it for worlds. 



' Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of!' — and so forth. Every 
body knows the quotation. Charming were the hours we passed 
therein, with beloved friends. If I ever felt a political predilec- 
tion — which I never did — I could have wished, as we closed 

the eiTibowered gate of our hospitable friend S , and his 

assiduous household, that he had been elected Governor of the 
Empire State.* Auburn ivas lovely ; but saving the premises of 
the above-mentioned, and a very few of the same character, it 
has sadly changed from ' the olden time.' I say sadly, because 
I deem that the improvements in tenements and marts of stone, 
which the town has been garnished withal, are but continuations, 
as it were, of the State's Prison. However, the least said is the 
soonest mended. The effect, to the traveller, on entering the 
place, is certainly pleasing, and indicative of great improvement. 
A superb hotel y'clept the American — I love the latter word 
— is there ; and in the scenery round about, there is much to 
please, and much to see. 

Reader, have you ever journeyed in the Genesee country ? 

•Time and large majorities confirmed this wish, on two subsequeat 
trials. Editor. 



OLLAPODIANA. 141 

If you have not, how much have you lost ! I speak not to those 
who pass the wonderful works of God with unobservant eyes, 
but I talk to those who find sermons and good in every thin^. 
To such, I would say, ' Surely you were charmed with the 
Skaneatles, and the region round about Cayuga?' There the 
country is healthy to live in, and lovely to see. Passing the lake 
of Cayuga, you can not well omit to notice the peculiar green- 
ness of the waters. They seem to the eye as if the grassy banks 
which surround them had been melted, and transfused into liquid 
emerald. If you should ever visit Cayuga — I speak now to any 
one who has neglected the western tour hitherto — you will per- 
ceive the truth of this present writing. 



It is wonderful how all the western towns flourish which pos- 
sess ' water privileges.' How extraordinary, for example, is the 
growth of Seneca Falls ! Not long ago, it was a mere hamlet, 
beside a little stream ; now it is almost a city ; while its whilome 
more pompous neighbor, Waterloo, seems dwindling to decay, 
or at least not perfectly kindled with that fire of improvement 
which generally distinguishes the West. 



' Beautiful exceedingly' is the terrestrial vestibule of the 
Genesee ! As we journeyed westward from the blue distances 
near the lake of Cayuga toward that pleasant region, I could not 
but seek to compare in my imagination the country we were 
nearing, to the country we had left. The first had been charm- 
ing to our eyes — could the remainder exceed it? The far-off 
uplands, over which the winds from the south-west went freshened 
from the Cayuga ; the green waters, that danced and eddied 
along the piers of the bridge ; conld they be transcended by any 
thing to come ? In that predicament of the fancy, ' ignorance 
was bliss.' We could only say ' Noxis rerro/is,^ and watch the 
flitting landscapes, or the plunge of the wheels of the ' extra,' as 
they sank, with a heavy gurgle, in the rugged road. 



Capital, and most delectable to see, is the lake of Geneva, 
and that beautiful gem of a town which crowns its crystal wave, 
above a strip of emerald verdure, and gardens flowering in the 
sun of June ! ' How sweet the day beams on those banks re- 
pose !' As we neared them, toward the going down of the sun, 
methought I was like the pilgrim of Bunyan, approaching the 
glorious regions of the land of Bcidah, and that I could discern 
the spirits of the blessed ' walking in white' along its romantic 
terraces. It seemed ' a fairy city of the heart ;' and for one 



142 OLLAPODIANA. 

short but delicious moment, I felt overcome with that enthusiasm 
engendered by the eye within the mind, and deserving that strik- 
ing observation of Madame de Stael, ' the superfluity of the 
soul,' thinking the while of Percival's noble lines to the 
Seneca waters : 

' On ihy fair bosom, silver lake, 

The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, 
And round his breast the ripples break. 
As down he bears before the gale.' 



Who was that anonymous herald of mine, who recorded be- 
neath my signature, as we proceeded toward the sunset, at every 
town where we paused to give breath to our cattle, the name of 
Ollapod, with many compliments in the Latin tongue ? Who- 
ever he was, I stretch forth to him the hand of fancy. Thou 
Grand Inconnn ! touch thy dextral digits in thought ; consider 
thine own vehemently squeezed ; and remain, if thou wilt, the 
kind Unknown ; at once corporeal and yet spiritual ; a creation 
insubstantial ; an entity, yet intangible ; ^umhra, civis, nihil P 



No OFFENCE to the turnpike company whose duty it is to 
superintend the roads betwixt Geneva and Canandaigua ; but 
candor compels me to say, they are a set of negligent varlets, 
deserving the anathemas of ' all who travel by land or by water,' 
especially those who abandon the cheating extras, and adopt the 
Telegraph. What riaht have these individuals to keep the holes 
in the turnpike so deep, and yet so treacherous ! One looks out 
with anxious eye to see what is ' going to come' in the way of 
thoroughfare, and lo ! distance lends enchantment to the view. 
The gilded pool seems dry ; the deceitful pudding of clay has a 
look of solidity ; but anon! — spvsh ! — down drop the wheels 
in front ; creak ! rings the tried and doubtful axle ; ' He^ep^ ! 
d — nation !' saith the driver ; ' Oh !' says the timid lady within; 
* Ha ! ha ! tliat was a screamer !' ejaculates the w^estern specu- 
lator, filled to the brim with animal spirits ! ' An oncommon deep 
'ole i' says the English em.igrant; 'I thank God ! we are out!' 
says the politician ; ' Uh, umph, whe-e-ze !' ejaculates the dozing 
and uncertain passenger, who has been travelling day and night 
for a week ; and thus the time goes on, until the day is well-nigh 
spent, and you see the farewell light of day playing over the sweet 
waters and Elysian bowers of Canandaigua. 



Rich and bountiful Ontario! — called by politicians the 'in- 
fected district,' by poets the garden of the state — the affluent 



OLLAPODIANA. 143 

parterre of every thing good for man, or nutritious for beast. 
The sheen of thy waters is yet in my eye ; the breath of thy 
clover fields yet regaleth my nostrils ; I seem, (here in this 
crowded home, with the liveried coaches rattling in my ear, and 
the city's voice booming about me,) I seem to be stealing flowers 
from the demesnes of some unknown Peri, or partaking the hos- 
pitality of friends and brethren. Beautiful country! — thou art 
the rus in urhe of my thought ! In thy mansions I have been 
seated, with all those culinary appliances and varied wines which 
smack of the city, over hearllis beneath which repose the bones 
of unnumbered Indians, with no circumstance to tell ine of the 
country, save the hallowed stillness ; the distant wheat fields 
wavino; to the breeze of summer ; the rural soire crownino- the 
distant hill, or the bleating of sheep, huddling together from the 
heat of the day, in the shade ! Precious hours ! They throng 
back upon my memor}'" with influences of peace ; with the hum 
of bees, the voice of waving branches, the tones of childhood, 
the prattle of running waters, and with the glow of the lake, 
which seemed to expand as the twilight drew near, 

That, smiling iVom the sweet south-west, 
The sunbeams might rejoice its breast. 

* * * 

One of those still and peaceful lakes, 

That ill a shining cluster lie, 
On which the south wind scarcely breaks 

The image of the sky. 

He who, having seen thee once, can easily forget thee, is fit 
for treason. 

To THE unobservant eye, doubtless there is much in the 
Genesee region that may seem dull and tame. To the enthusi- 
astic, the close-vievv^ing, or the romantic, it is not so. The vil- 
lages are thriving and neat ; the country rich in every thing ; and 
' the rising generation,' the children, are lovely specimens of 
juvenile humanity. We sav/ them, in almost every meadow we 
passed, up to their knees in strawberry-vines and clover, gather- 
ina: the blossoms of the one and the fruits of the other. Pleasant 
beyond description, too, are the white dwellings in the towns, 
embowered in the honey-locust tree, or lilting their pale chim- 
neys behind the tall and melancholy poplars which whisper 
around. 

A LUDICROUS incident occurred at Batavia. There is a creek 
m the neighborhood, which makes ' upward of considerable' 



144 OLLAPODIANA. 

noise, after niglit-fal:. The English passenger, who reached the 
town before us, by leaving the stage and walking on foot, ima- 
gined it to be the Falls of Niagara, from which we were then 
between fifty and sixty miles. He went out and listened. ' My 
God !' said he, ' what oncommon roaring falls them is ! They 
must ey-ther be very 'igh, or else the winds is riz.' The mis- 
take was not corrected, and the fellow retired to rest, with his 
stupic cranium firmly impressed with the belief that his long ears 
had cauo-ht the sound of the Great Cataract. 



Traveler ! — as thou wendest toward the West, if thou art 
within some fifteen miles of Batavia, and thinkest of pausing for 
the night, rescind die mental resolution, and post on to that town. 
There shalt thou experience a good bed, and delicious rest, with 
the murmur of the Tonnawanta breathing upon the night air thy 
quiet lullaby. Do this ; to the end that, rising in the morning, 
thou go to Richville, and there to breakfast, which is an hospi- 
table town, and hath an hotel whose superior is not to be found, 
whether thou go to the south-west or north-west, or indeed to any 
point of the compass. Comfortable and expedidous Blodget ! 
The voluminousness of thy periphery indicatedi the epicure ; 
upon the pullets thou sacrifices!, are the pin-feathers of youth ; 
thy warm cakes are done deliciously brown ; thy yellow butter, 
thy irreproachable eggs, thy unimpeachable coffee — my mne- 
monical palate remembers them all. Murder Creel:, too, is in 
thy vicinity ; and as it goes moaning onward under the rude 
bridge that spans it, the refiection of bright red mills upon its 
shore, as they give back the sunbeam, gives its murder's proper 
hue and ' damned spot.' The tradition is, that a poor crazy old 
man was killed here by the Indians, many years ago, in the early 
settlement of the country : 

' May be be true, may be be no so ; 
We '11 grant it is, and let it go so.' 

At any rate, (Blodget, T thank thee for the sentence,) if Rich- 
ville hath the memory of death, it hath likewise, and in full pro- 
fusion, the means of life. 

It is anti-agreeable to post over a road which looks like a 
river, and where the course your conveyance is to take is indi- 
cated by stakes implanted in the solid part of that ' undiscovered 
country' over which you are rolling as it were in a ship. Such 
was our experience through a part of the Genesee region. But I 
caught one view from ihe window of our coach, which I shall not 



OLLAPODIANA. 145 

soon forget. Along the distant uplands of the Genesee there 
lay a long plain of mist, with irregular indentations, like the bays 
of a lake ; above them arose a gorgeous array of clouds, and 
between both, a wide stretch of verdure. The mist looked like 
an ocean ; the fragments that sailed by themselves, or hung in 
motionless masses in the air, appeared like towers and temples. 
The effect was indescribably magnificent. 



Ten miles to the east of Buffalo, I looked out from our con- 
veyance, filled with anxious expectation. For the most part, the 
day had been a day of wind and storm ; but the tempest had 
passed over, the winds had gone back to their caves, and the sun 
looked forth from the west, with features of unutterable beauty. 
A vast curtain of clouds rolled up from the north and north-west, 
leaving the clarified sky so darkly and serenely blue, that it 
almost approached the purple. It was that part of the heavens 
which bent its unfathomable arch over the expanse of Erie and 
Niagara, on its resounding journey to the Ontario. Far as the 
eye could reach, on every hand, save the rising road toward the 
west, all the region round about was level as the floor of a city 
saloon. But die radius embraced by the eye was small, from 
that very circumstance. The only evidence we had of our 
proximity to those great inland oceans, just mentioned, was 
traceable in the bending heads of those distant forest trees which 
were higher than the surrounding monarchs of the wild. These, 
with the orchard trees on both sides of the way, inclined to the 
east at an angle of three horizontal to one vertical foot. There 
were the symptotas of approach to Old Erie. There the con- 
stant winds from the west had howled their winter anthems, and 
wailed in praise of the strength and grandeur of Omnipotence. 
As I was saying, I looked forth from our vehicle ; and becoming 
too much excited with expectation to remain within, a gentleman, 
who knew my impatience, counselled me to wait until we reached 
a slight eminence beyond, where he told me I should in all 
probability behold a sight worth seeing. This vague announce- 
ment sharpened my curiosity. At last, the trivial eminence was 
reached, and my friend bade me cast my glance to the north- 
west. I looked, and beheld, rising above the level distance, 
apparently thirty miles off, a spiral pillar of steamy mist, against 
the perfect sky, uplifting itself with slow and solemn movement, 
ending in a column of faint, and quivering, and beautiful crimson. 

' What do you think that is Y said my friend. 

Quite unable to answer the question, I confessed my igno- 
rance in the phraseology of Polonius : ' By the mass, I cannot tell.' 

10 



144 



OLLAPODIANA. 



* That,' said he, ' is the spray from the Niagara /' 
I felt my blood rush quicker, and tingle through my veins, at 
the mere mention of the name. I mounted on the outside with 
the driver, and surveyed every object near and far with the in- 
tense delight and quick sense of novelty which I have cherished 
from my youth. 

' How high is the sun ?' I inquired of the postillion, after the 
seeming lapse of a few moments, as the great orb appeared rap- 
idly nearing the horizon, ' and what is the distance from Buffalo?' 

' The sun is two hours up yet, Sir, and I expect we are a 
tni\d and a half from the city — jest about' — answered Whip. 

It was not without a laugh at his idea of calling Buffalo a city, 
that I buttoned the over-coat which the freshening wind from 
Erie, yet unseen, had rendered requisite, and abandoned mysell 
to the intoxication of my expectant thoughts. Shortly, we began 
to ascend a rise of ground ; higher sweeps of landscape rollea 
upward from afar ; smokes, as from distant steam-boats, arose 
heavenward ; bright domes appeared; and all at once — beauti 
ful sight! — the ' city,^ with its spires, and squares, and streets 
lay at my feet ; a magnificent thoroughfare, Old Main, as the 
Buffalonians call it, stretched for miles before my eye ; palaces 
were around me ; the thick spars of innumerable ships streamed 
iheir colors on the breeze ; water-craft were hastening to the 
Canadas, lying greenly and beautiful across the bay ; and beyond 
all. Lake Erie stretched its tremblingly blue expanse toward the 
West, with shadows of golden clouds trailing over its bosom, 
and ships melting afar off into nothingness, toward the chamber 
of the evening sun ! Reader, Buffalo is a wonder and a marvel. 
Approach it as I did, in summer, and on Sunday. To its vari- 
ous portals, as did the strangers to old Rome, 

' Cast louad thine eyes, and see 



What conflux issuing forth, or entering in ; 
On embassies from regions far remote. 
In various habits, on the Appian road, 
Or on the Emilian.' 



The whole of the Genesee country is but a tame, yet it is a 
beatitiful prelude, to those splendid pictures in that magnificent 
scenery of the West, of which Buffalo forms the opening view. 

* Tell me,' said I to my Jehu, ' what is the population of this 
* city,^ which we are approaching ?' 

'It is nigh to twenty thousand, /Hew/^/' ejaculated the dis- 
penser of impulses to the rattle before him, with an evident feel 



O L, I- A P C) D I A N A . 447 

ing of pleasure that he was showing wonders ; ' and what 's 
more, stranger, we shall soon be at the Eagle. Jest let me ask 
you, ^Squire, did you ever see any thing like that 'are?' ' 

I turned to the direction of his whip, to the south-west, where 
a bay of Erie bent into the woodlands, stretching for miles. 

• What is that V I inquired. 

' Why, it 's Buffalo ! You see the streets of the outskirts, 
marked out in the edges of the woods, several miles off; you 
see the white buildings among the green trees, where the stumps 
is n't yet grubbed up ; and where they do say, that sheep and 
deer is enclosed in the cellars of the houses, built to nearly the 
second story ; and yet they say, and I believe it, that there is n't 
a house in all Buffalo, fur and nigh, 02<!^-skirts and iw-skirts, that 
has n't more tenants than can be disposed of.' 

I continued to gaze in the direction he had pointed ; and 
truly the sight was beyond the blazon of tongue or pen. It 
seemed to my eye as if more than half of the city of Buffalo had 
been but yesterday redeemed from the wilderness. A town of 
brick, large, stately, and imposing in itself, was encompassed on 
all sides by extending tenements of white, sufficient in number 
to form a dozen country villages ; in the middle of the town were 
country seats, surrounded with parks, through which the deer 
bounded, as in those early days, not long ago, when the shores 
of Erie were forests, and the lake was crossed only by the ad- 
venturous canoe of the daring Indian ; when if a young Pale 
Face came to tempt them, he was admonished by the Red Skins 
to forbear : 

Son of the stranger ! wouldst thou take 

O'er yon blue hills thy lonely way, 
To reach the still and shining lake, 

Along whose banks the west winds play ? 
Let no vain dreams thy heart beguile ; 
Oh, seek not thou the Fountain Isle ! 

Bright, bright, in many a rocky urn, 

The waters of our deserts lie ; 
Yet at their source, the lip shall bum. 

Parched with the fever's agony ; 
From the blue mountains to the main, 
Our thousand floods may roll in vain. 

Even there our hunters came of yore, 
Back from their long and weary quest; 

Had they not seen the untrodden shore, 
And could they midst our wilds find rest? 

The lightning of their glance was fled, 

They dwelt among us as the dead ! 



148 OLI.APODIANA. 

They lay beside tlie glittering rills, 
With visions iu their darkened eye ; 

Their joy was not amidst the hills, 
Where elk and deer before them fly; 

Their spears upon the cedar hung, 

Their javelins to the winds were flung. 

They bent no more the forest bow, 

They armed not with the wanior-band ; 

The moon waved o'er them, dim and slow - 
They left us, for the Spirit Land I 

Beneath our pines, you green-sward heap 

Shows where the restless found their sleep. 



For the rest, wherein is narrated the visit of Ollapod to the 
Great Cataract, and to those divers points of interest which are 
to be found by the way, as the returning traveler journeys toward 
the Atlantic sea-board, is it not all recorded in the diary, of which 
the foregoing is but a little part ? Of a verity, dear reader, 
Providence permitting, thou shalt hear again, anon, from 'the 
man of many wanderings.' 



NUMBER FIFTEEN. 

October, 1836. 

Sonorous and stirring are the sounds of the bell at the Eagle, 
in Buffalo, which summons the wayfarer to the bolting of his 
meridian, nocturnal, and matutinal meal ! Wo to him, the edu- 
cation of whose jaws, in the swift movements of mastication, has 
been neglected ! It were better his mother had not borne him, 
than to have him seated at the table. However, I say nothing 
to this point. Eating is earthly and sensual ; and the knife-and- 
fork system of pursuing it, especially where you cannot select 
your own hardware, is devilish. Commend me to the Turk. I 
could not eat with satisfaction at the table d'hote of any inn in 
the country, (some ten excepted, which it would be invidious to 
name) did the table groan with a feast like that which covered 
the parental board of Katrina Van Tassel, that Dutch beau ideal 
of our beloved Irving. 



Talking of Washington Irving. I take it for granted, 
good reader, that you have never encountered him ; for be it 
known, except in the elevated circle where he moves and shines, 
he is one who loves not to be ' seen of men.' He hates your 



OLLAPO DIANA. 149 

pointings-oul in the streets, and greetings in the markets : these he 
leaves to be struggled after, with painful yearnings, by the flimsy 
fry which injudicious friends would inflate to his capacity anfl 
standard. It is a year ago since 1 had the pleasure of repeating 
the pleasure of discernment and intercourse with this genial, af- 
fectionate, and noble man. I have for Irving — and I am will- 
ing to confess it — a kind of love. His veracious books, com- 
prising the History of New York, have created more risibility 
under my waistcoat, than any volumes from the past or of the 
present. I read them regularly once a year. There is about 
them such a transparent flow of wit — such glorious satire — such 
happiness of expression — such more-than-meets-the-eye phra- 
ses — that, take them up when and where I will, they violate my 
sobriety, and seduce me into a hearty guffaw. As Geoffrey Cray- 
on, I am charmed with him ; as an historian, I honor him ; as a 
patriot and a gentleman, I thoroughly revere him. What a style 
is his ! None of your shallow tinsel, your unnatural emblems, 
your forced conceits, your windy tropes : all is truth, gentleness, 
nature. God bless the gentleman ! Well, as I was saying, 't is 
now about a year since 1 saw him last. It was a bridal scene. 
Sweet was the gusto of the Marcobrunner upon the lips of my 

friend G and his comrade Ollapod, when the splendid 

coach flashed its whirring wheels between the green walks of the 
Park and our apartment at the Clinton. (As yet, famed Astor^s 
was not.) ' Considerable if not more' were the oglings we re- 
ceived, as our satin-lined coats fluttered their white aspects 
around the door of the carriage ; and the flowery favors I bore, 
elicited envious looks ' from each pedestrian churl,' as we rolled 
along Broadway to Square. 



Imagine it a few moments after sunset, in a superb drawing- 
room, a few steps from a famous idaza — ' I think they call it.' 
The rosy lingering of a June sky enable you to discern yourself 
surrounded with grooms and bride's-maids, some half a score. 
Carriages bustle up beneath you, freighted with beauty ; the harp 
rings from the hall ; the sweet perfume from a hundred bouquets 
float through the apartment. The past and present meet togeth- 
er. Warm hands are in your grasp ; fair smiles and happy 
laughter beam and echo around. ' Where,' one could not but 
think, ' may we all be widiin the year ! Some, now around me, 
will be on the ocean, in the service of their country ; some in 
Italy — some in Egypt — some in Greece.' And so they are. 



Descend with me to the bridal saloon. There stands the 



150 OLLAPODIANA. 

holy man. We proceed, ' in order due ;' and forming that ' open 
line,' which never looks so beautiful as on such an occasion, 
hear the vows that bind togetlier two loving hearts. Silks rustle, 
kisses echo, diamonds gleam — fairy voices murmur around. By 
the way, that kissing is a pleasant business. It is highly com- 
mended of iSt. Paul ; and though I may, as that worthy apostle 
once said of himself, ' speak as a fool,' yet I am going to make 
a hitherto unattempted literary effort. I trust it will be well ' got 
up.' I am going to do what Solomon said could not be done; 
namely, describe something new. This is the age of improve- 
ment. ' Ladies and gentlemen, stand back, and you will see' — 
a kiss on iiapei: Do n't be incredulous. I will give you the 
sound in types. Listen ! When two pairs of affectionate lips 
are placed together, to the intent of osculation, the noise educed 
is something like the ensuing — epe-st''iveep\sf.-e^e! — and then the 
sound tapers off" so softly and so musical, that no letters can do 
it justice. But this is a digression. If any one thinks my de- 
scription imperfect, let him surjiass it, if he can ! 

' Who is that gentleman, standing by the pier-table, in the 
other drawing-room V said I to a friend. ' I am oblivious of his 
name, but his countenance is familiar. He has a noble fore- 
head — a discerning eye — a most goodly presence. How the 
organs of humor expand in his temples ! What a benevolent 
smile plays around his lips ! — and he seems, too, the focus of 
all eyes.' 

' Yes,' I was answered, ' and he deserves it. That is Wash- 
ington Irving.' 

The remembrance of the face struck me in a moment. We 
had met before, but not as acquaintances ; and the pleasure of 
an introduction offered by my friend, a long-tried compeer of 
Crayon, was accepted with prompt alacrity. IMy memory of 
that interview, and the prolonged colloquy to which, from cir- 
cumstances, it gave rise, is really among the most pleasant of my 
life. Irving had unknowingly done me sundry favors abroad, 
when Secretary of Legation at the Court of St. James, by the 
transmission of letters ibr me to America, through the department 
of state. For these I thanked him cordially. A stoup of wine 
followed ; and how numerous were the excellent sayings that 
went forth from his lips, over those gouts of floating gold we 
quaffed together ! Geoffrey seemed almost disposed, for the 
nonce, to eulogize the Benedict. ' The rustling of silks and the 
creaking of shoes betrayed his fond heart to woman.' A gleam 
of genuine pleasure laughed in his eye. In dress simple — in 



OLLAPODIANA. 151 

manners gentle, and easily entreated — he takes the hue of the 
time and the taste of his company so gracefully upon himself, 
that you think you have known him for years. And if you are 
a reader, so you have. I wondered at the verdict once given me 

respecting him, hy Fanny K , that at the aristocratic dinners 

of London he was quite reserved, and sometimes s/cepj. Me- 
thought (as he passed on from subject to subject without impedi- 
ment — from the changes in the city of his heart, since the days 
of Stuyvesant and Van Twiller — correcting now and then, with 
right good will, my erroneous pronunciation of some of those 
jaw-sundering Dutch names) that there was something in the at- 
mosphere .of home, and the sweet pomp of a bridal scene, which 
won upon his affection, and sent a genial glow to his inmost heart. 
Would that the properties of social life might permit a transcript 
of the constant felicities which he then and there diffused into the 
porches of mine ear ! Thoughts, common perha])s in themselves, 
clothed in such exquisite and teUivg expression ; fancies evoked 
from every-day facts ; happy terms and phrases innumerable. 
Could I record them, how much would they enrich this my fifth 
subsection of number fifteen ! 



REVEN0^"s A Buffalo. He who would form a just appre- 
ciation of this wonderful city, let him, as I did, (if he have liter- 
ary acquaintances and comrades of the mind, but personally un- 
known,) take the arm of a friend, and as the twihght comes on, 
go down through Main-street to the Erie pier. What a sight ! 
It is one which makes the heart of the observer swell with pride 
that he was born an American. ' It was a Sunday evening,' as 
Southey would say, when I coursed with my friend along the 
crowded quay of Buffalo. The sun had gone down beyond the 
far headlands toward the Occident, and a track of quivering gold 
stretched for leagues to the west, over the dancing waves of that 
inland ocean, Erie — portraying the ruddy brightness of the day- 
god's car. Inspiring music filled the atmosphere ; the streamers' 
of steam craft, (ready, like a mighty war-horse, to burst their 
tether, and pawing the waves with impatience,) flouted the sky ; 
the tramp of unnumbered feet echoed along the pavements ; the 
church-going bells rang from afar. I stopped for some minutes 
to gaze upon the face of a beautiful Indian girl, of the Seneca 
tribe, as she offered me her gay-colored moccasins. I would 
not buy — but I could not go. I waited, therefore, with pleased 
delay, affecting not to understand her broken English ; watching, 
the while, how her voluptuous lashes rose and fell over those 
dark, surprised, and dewy eyes. She was perhaps sixteen ; 



152 OLLAPODIANA. 

graceful beyond words, yet stately as Juno, and her form mould- 
ed in the fulness of youth. There was such a world of intelli- 
gence in her glance, and in that soft blush, half olive and half 
■ I by, which glowed on her cheek, that (I might as well own 
li) the bosom of Ollapod was marvellously troubled. Laugh 
not, reader — but to that bright remnant of a perishing race the 
enthusiastic Benedict kissed his hand ! Yes, and the tawny 
digits of the fair kSeneca went to her lips, and a smile, bright as 
a line of unsullied sunlight from the pearly gates of Eden, beam- 
ed upon the parting glance of Ollapod. 'T was evanescent — 
but how nice ! 

I HAVE no idea of being statistical : my limited acquaintance 
with Daboll, and other arithmetical gentlemen, forbids me from 
dabbling in figures. But, if any one desires to see practical muL- 
tiplication, whether in persons or in property, let him go to Buf- 
falo. ' Where are those steamers bound V' asked I of my friend, 
as we stood upon the pier which, in front of warehouses for many 
a rood in extent, was covered to the height of fifteen and some- 
times twenty feet with unhoused merchandise, for which the 
houses themselves, glutted to the overflow, had not admission. 

' Oh, only a few hundred miles up the lake.' 

' A Jew hundred miles /' I exclaimed astonished : ' In the name 
of aquatic locomotion, how far can they go ? Do you pretend 
to say they can proceed farther to the west than I have come 
from the south-east V 

A hearty laugh followed this observation, which startled the by- 
standers. Just at this moment a steamer got under way. She 
moved majestically along the side of the pier, passing ships al- 
most innumerable ; bugles and trumpets hallowed the air with 
those national songs which do so stir my blood ; and really I am 
quite unable to describe my elateness of spirit, as she turned the 
point where the light-house lifts its tall pharos over land and 
wave, and went musically along the bosom of Erie, the wreaths 
of smoke and flame shooting in gusty grandeur from her chim- 
neys. Fifteen hundred miles might that craft travel along the 
west, toward the setting sun. What was lately there "? The howl 
of the wolf and the Indian, the whoop on the war-trail, and the 
solemn yell around the council-fire. From those dim shores, 
now lading into the indistinctness of twilight, went up the smoke 
of the wigwam, or the gleam from the pine torch, by whose light 
the red man guided his venturous canoe ! What is there now? 
Towns rear their bristling spires and masts, and send their sjm-it- 
hoats alonsr the waters like things of life : the hallowed chimes 



OLLAPODIANA. 153 

of the Sabbath reach the Indian in his hut, and the raven on his 
bough. The Past has vanished as a scroll ; and the bustling, thja 
usual Present is around us, with the hiss of its rail-road engines, 
the thunders of its steaming apparatus, and the rolling of the tri- 
umphant wheels of commerce. It seems to me, too, that in these 
western regions the soul of man glows with a newer fire, and 
fresher impulse ; as if some Indian Prometheus, seeing the decay 
of the Red Nations, had sent a fervent spirit into the bosoms of 
their white successors. A word here in the reader's ear. If 
thou goest to Buffalo, ascend thee to the dome of the American, 
and cast thine eyes southward. There, league on league, stretch- 
es the blue and primeval wilderness, and from the wigwams of 
the Senecas the smokes go up, as in the days when the whole 
forest was their dominion, and the Pale Faces feeble and few. 
Look then around you. Magic is there ! The tide of power, 
rising and rolling onward, sends its roar to your ear ; and you 
see the progress of that mighty flood of enterprise which is yet to 
fill the West with a noble and prosperous people. If you are 
an American, your heart will bound proudly within you, until 
you will feel as if, like the green mountains of ancient Israel, you 
could break forth into singing. If you love your native land, 
travel through it, and your affection will increase and multiply 
mightily. Yes, my glorious country ! every additional mile I 
traverse of thy boundaries, adds to the flame of my attachment. 
Filled with a brave and generous people, who have done more in 
the same space of time than any nation ever did to promote the 
honor and liberty of man — I love thee ! Thou hast, too, thank 
God ! the elements of perpetuity within thee : 

' Seas, and stormy air, 

A.re the wide barriers of thy borders, where 
Thou laugh'st at enemies ; who shall then declare 
The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell 
How happy in thy lap the sons of men shall dwell ." 

I WOKE early at the Eagle, excited and unrefreshed. The 
idea of seeing Niagara the next day impressed me so deeply, 
when I retired the evening before, that I was unable to sleep ; 
and had I been thus disposed, there were influences enough 
about me to prevent somnolency, even in a sloth. It was the 
Eden of a weasel, the place where I lay. The apartment was 
named The Pasture, by a facetious fellow-traveller ; and verily, 
many were the bipedal animals who ' ruminated bedward' there- 
in. I slept opposite a speculator in Michigan lands ; and, as if 
determined never to be caught napping, he slept with his eyes 
ope?i. The effect was really frightful. By the light of the moon, 



154 OLLAPODIANA. 

Streaming through the window, I saw his cunning optics — full 
of bargain and sale — glaring upon me. Sometimes it seemed 
as if all the mortal light had departed from them ; yet still they 
glared into mine. 1 aver, with sincerity, that those eyes never 
closed the live-long night. They seemed alive — yet dead. I 
thought of Coleridge's lines in the ' Auntient Marinere :' 

' An orphan's curse might drag to hell 

A spirit from on high ; 
But oil ! more terrible than that, 

Is the curse of a dead man's eye : 
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, 

And yet I could not die.' 

One who is not shigle in every sense of the word, should bestow 
his rib and maid in an adjacent apartment, taking himself what 
the gods might be willing to confer in such emergencies. As I 
said, I awoke early ; and performing certain orisons with a razor 
belonging to the establishment, (God knows how many chins it 
has reaped in its time !) before a glass which screwed my coun- 
tenance into a horrific caricature, I made ready to accompany 
* self and party' to the Falls. 



Behold us on the deck of the steamer Victory. The breeze 
of morning is fresh and fair ; the engine hisses and trembles ; 
carriages throng to the pier ; ladies, with albums under their arms, 
thick green veils over their pretty faces, and in habiliments of 
travel, throng on board. Agitation and expectancy give them 
color ; veil after veil is put back, like gossamer ; calm brows and 
glancing eyes appear. Among these, Ollapod recognises many ; 
some, seen and flirted with of yore. By and by the green 
waters of Erie begin to melt into the less turbulent Niagara ; you 
float calmly along, observing and observed. How much pleas- 
ure is clustered in such moments ! 



There is, among those who have not seen it, a wonderful 
misapprehension respecting the river Niagara. It is not like a 
river ; it seems a moving lake. Grand Island, too, with the un- 
initiated, is deemed a small tract of ground, without particular 
attractions ; a place, perhaps, for the country-seat of some mil- 
lionaire. Yet it is between three or four leagues long, and the 
greater part of it is a solid wilderness, with as it were a lake on 
cither side. Perhaps, untravelled reader, this may give you an 
idea of the ritcr of Niao;ara. 



OLLAPODIANA. 166 

As YOU approach the northern end of Grand Island, anticipa- 
tion stands on tiptoe. I ascended to that sacred portion of the 
steamer y'clept the roof of the wheel-house, where the sound o'f 
the paddles gurgled out a kind of lullaby to my spirit. The blue 
sky had changed : from the waves of Ontario, and the stretch of 
Niagara, the morning mists had arisen, and formed into clouds. 
These rolled upward, in long ribs of purple and gold, from the 
north, one above another, like some celestial stair-case, leading, 
as did the dreamy ladder of .Jacob, into Heaven. As we parted 
the ripples with a nimble prow, the deer were seen, starting 
from their coverts, in the woods of the island, while the eagle, 
scared from the arms of his favorite and aspiring cedar, soared 
with his shrill scream into the abyss of Heaven, where his form 
was soon swallowed up in the distance. 



Shortly after you leave Grand Island, you expand into a 
scene which, to my agitated remembrance, resembles the Tap- 
•pan Zee of the Hudson. All now is expectation. Every eye 
is bent to the north. ' How far is it from Chippewa V asked I, 
of a friendly delegation of journalists and legislators, whose ge- 
nial spirits and intercourse I cherish with the warmest recollec- 
tions. ' Not far,' was the answer ; ' you will be there soon.' 



At the distance of five miles from Niagara Falls, you catch 
the first distinct view. Is it subHme? No — for distance so 
softens and deceives, that you can not appreciate it. You strain 
your outward-looking eyes, till the retina aches with gazing. 
What do you see ? A cloud of apparent smoke, along the 
northern border, the nil ultra of the lake you are ploughing ; and 
on either side all is apparently a wide shore of rocks and woods ; 
beyond, a terrible gulf, of which you see nothing but the cease- 
less cloud that rises at its dim and dismal edffe. 



' And that is Niagara /' said I, as the mountainous spray, 
volume after volume, swelled upward in the sun. ' Well, I seem 
disappointed.' 

' Do you ?' said my friend, the legislator, with a triumphant 
accent on the first branch of the interrogation. ' You see the 
cataract is as yet afar off; just put your hand to your ear, guard- 
ing it from the tumult of the machinery, and tell me if you do 
not hear something V 

I did so ; and sonorous, full, and replete with a sense of awe, 
the voice of the cataract swelled in my ear. 



156 OLLAPODIANA. 

All was now expectancy and enthusiasm. I could scarcely 
stand still. Before me, like the pillar of fire to the host of the 
Israelites, rose that eternal column of snowy mist, tinct and gar- 
nished by the sunbeam — and I had caught the sound of Niagara. 



I SCARCELY know how I left Chippewa. I am aware that 
all my travelling movements and precautions were executed with 
habitual discretion ; but I can not explain to any one the new 
sensations I experienced on our way to the Falls. When at the 
distance of some two miles from the cataract, there seemed to be 
an increasing shadow, like that of an eclipse, in the atmosphere. 

The dimness increased ; and on passing a lapse of woods, and 
emerging again in sight of the river, I felt assured that a stoma 
was coming on. 1 ordered our postiUion to stop. 

' Is there no house,' I inquired, ' between this and Niagara ? 
There is a thunder-shower coming on ; I hear it growHng.' 



It would have done your heart good, to have heard the laugh 
of that driver. It was loud and long ; it bubbled up from his 
heart, as if what he had just heard was the best joke he had hs- 
tened to for years. 

' Bless your soul, friend, it 's not going to rain. What you 
see, is the cloudy mist, and what you hear, is the roar of them 
Falls, yender. Jest wait a minute — and then ' 

'Stop !' said I, rising in our barouche, while, gilded by the 
westering sun, I caught, as we wheeled around a clump of trees, 
the first view of the vast green gulf and circle of the Horse-Shoe 
Fall. 

My good reader, you must excuse my enthusiasm. It has 
been said that Niagara can not be described. I think it can be. 
Can not one record on paper the thoughts provoked by the ob- 
jects of grandeur and magnificence that have met his eye ? Ver- 
ily, I trow so ; and I will try. The first mistake corrected by 
an approach to Niagara, is as to its width. \ ou have supposed 
it an outlet from one lake to another, pressed into narrow boun- 
daries, and urged onward by irresistible impulses. You were de- 
ceived by fancy. The river is like some bay of an ocean ; as if 
indeed the Atlantic and Pacific, one far below the other, should 
meet, by the former being narrowed to the width of one or two 
miles, and falling to the depth of more than two hundred feet, 
with rocks and islands on the edge of the vast gulf, frowning and 
waving between. 



OLLAPODIANA. 157 

Very soon we reached the Pavilion. The selection of an 
apartment, visitation to the barber, and the donning of a cool 
summer dress, were all speedily accomplished. The ceaseless 
hum of the Falls was in my hearing — it shook the windows of 
the Pavilion, from which I gazed. Below, at a k\v rods distance, 
the mighty Niagara plunged into its misty abyss : above, to the 
south, it seemed as if an ocean, fierce as that tide which ' keeps 
due on to the Propontic and the Hellespont,' was rushing madly 
down to some undiscovered cavern, where its fury was lost and 
suspended for ever. 



Descending through the garden and the open common which 
intervene between the Pavilion and the distant river to the east- 
ward, we struck the road, and observed the sign which pointed 
' 13^ To THE Falls.' Here let me say a word, which I think 
will give the idea of Niagara vividly to one who has never seen 
it. It seemed to me, as I looked from the window of the Pavil- 
ion, that the river was nearly on a level with the house. Well, 
I passed over the places I have mentioned ; and at the guide-post 
aforesaid, we began to make a most precipitous descent, over 
rude stair-cases, bedded in miry clay. In a few moments we 
were nearly on a level with the river, which was in full view, and 
close at hand. At that instant, the first impression of the vast 
poive)- of Niagara struck my mind ; but it was faint and feeble, 
compared with those that succeeded. For miles, looking up- 
ward at the stream, it resem^bled a foaming ocean, vexed by the 
storms of the equinox. We proceeded to the house which heads 
the perpendicular descent to the bed of the river, at the foot of 
the Falls. Those who dress for deeds of aquatic daring with 
more deliberation than myself, would have changed their ordinary 
attire for those simple and coarse habiliments usually adopted by 
those adventurous spirits who get their drenched certificates for 
going under the sheet — but for my part, I had not the patience. 
Endowing myself with an oil-cloth surtout, I began to descend 
the stair-case leading to the base of the cataract. 



The descent seemed interminable. I thought I had travelled 
an hour, still moving round and round — in darkness, and alone. 
It was a solemn probation, during which I had time to nerve my 
spirit for the grandeur and the awe with which it was soon to be 
impressed. At last, I made my egress from the stair-case into 
the presence of the Wonder. 

My first idea was, that a tremendous storm had brewed since I 
began to descend. Several rods to the south, the Falls, dimly 



158 OLLAPODIANA. 

seen, boomed and thundered with a noise so stunning, that I was 
almost distracted. At my feet, there rolled onward what seemed 
a lake of ?nilk — having about it nothing dark — not even a 
glimpse of water-color. I saw, near by, a tall black figure, smil- 
ing graciously, like some good-natured Charon, ready to trans- 
port his customers across the River of Death. He announced 
himself as the conductor of gentlemen under the Falls. Taking 
his hand, I approached them. At a certain point, as we drew 
nigh, I begged him to stop. The mist had surged upward from 
my vision, and before me brole down, as it were, the Atlanticy 
from a height so dizzy that it made the eye shrink from gazing ; 
the distant side of the vast semicircle hid from view by a rain- 
bow, and the awful mass of green, mad waters, rushing to the 
abyss, with a noise like the breaking up of chaos ! What is like 
that scene ! It is itself alone ; to depict it comparisons fail. You 
must describe itself. 

I know not how it was, but such a sense of awe and majesty 
descended at that moment upon my spirit, that I burst into tears, 
and shivered through every nerve. What an awful hum and 
moaning pierced the hearing sense ! Above me, hideous rocks 
rose for hundreds of feet ; dark shelves, wet with the eternal 
tempest around them ; and at every moment a stormy gust would 
drive a deluge of water in my face, taking my breath, and chill- 
ing me, as it were in the depth of the solstice, even to the bone. 
As we shouldered the dark ledges which extended under the 
sheet, I almost shrank from the desperate undertaking ; and 
never did lover, howsoever deeply skilled in ' holy palmistry,' 
press the jewelled hand of his mistress with such affection as 
that wherewith Ollapod grasped the sable fingers of his African 
conductor. His splay feet and amphibious-looking heels seem- 
ed to stamp him some creature of the elements ; a Caliban, 
schooled to generous offices by some supernatural master. 



When you approach within ten feet or so of that tremendous 
launch of waters, then is the time to pause for a moment, to steep 
and saturate your soul with one pre-eminent and grand remem- 
brance. For me, if milUons of human beings had been around 
me, I should have felt alone — and as one who, having passed 
beyond the dominions of mortality, stood presented before the 
marvels of his God ! It is a place for the silent adoration of the 
heart for Him 

•Who made the world, and heaped the waters far 
Above its loftiest mountain.' 

Whence came those ceaseless and resounding floods ? From 



OLLAPODIANA. 169 

the ' hollow hand' of Omnipotence ! Fancy stretches and plumes 
her adventurous pinions from this point : she goes onward to tt^e 
Upper Lakes, and their peopled shores ; she pursues her voyage 
to the dark streams and inland seas of the west ; and returning, 
finds their delegated waters pouring heavily and with eternal 
thunder down that dizzy steep ! Thought, preying upon itself, 
is lost in one deep and profound sense of awe ; of recollection, 
of prospect. I may change one word from Byron, to express 
my meaning : 

' By those that deepest feel, is iil expiest 
The indistinctness of the laboring breast : 
Where tlioiisand thoughts begin, to end in one, 
Wliich seek I'rom all the refuge found in none.' 

From the spot of which I speak, you can easily imagine that 
there has come upon you the deluge, or the day of doom. The 
voices of eternity seem to burden the air ; look up, and the dark 
rocks, like the confines of Plegethon, seem tottering to their fall ; 
where you stand, the whirlwind which bears upon its pinions 
drops heavier than those of the most dismal tempest that ever 
rent the wilderness on land, or wrecked an armament at sea, is 
moaning and howling. Casting a glance at the upper verge of 
the Falls, you see the turbulent rapids, thick, green, and high, 
shrinking back, as it were, from their perilous descent, until a 
mass of waves behind urges them, resistless, onward ; to speak 
in thunder, and to rise in mist and foam, the children of strife, 
yet parents of the rainbow, that emblem of peace. 



I ONCE asked an elderly friend, in whose domicil I was a fa- 
vored inmate, and who suffered much from the gout, whether 
there might be any pain, known to myself, which would compare 
with it. ' No !' he replied : ' I never met anything of the sort in 
my life : there is nothing on earth like it ; and T am destitute of 
' any descriptive comparison. I am not dead at present ; I hav' n't 
been as yet to Tophet ; and therefore can't tell whether gout is 
like that, or purgatory ; but I believe it to be as near that as any- 
thing.' It is thus with Niagara. There is no emblem : it has no 
rival — it is like no rival. Its multitudinous waves have a glory 
and a grandeur of their own, to which nothing can be added, 
and from which nothing can be taken away. 



It has been said, that the tremors or presentiments of those 
who march to battle, are dissipated by the bustling of caparisoned 
horses, the rolling of the war-drum, the clangor of the trumpet, 
the clink and fall of swords, ' the noise of the captains and the 



16U OLLAPODIANA. 

shouting.' Some such kind of inspiration is given to the thought 
ful and observant man, who goes under the Great Fall of Niagara. 
As I moved along behind my sable guide, holding on to his 
dexter, 

' Even as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 
Chngs close and closer to its mother's breast;' 

while the waters dashed fiercer and more fiercely around about 
me ; methought I had, in an evil hour, surrendered myself to 
perdition, and was now being dragged thither by the ebon paw 
of Satan. Shortly, however, the stormy music of Niagara took 
possession of my soul ; and had Abaddon himself been there, I 
could have followed him home. For one moment, only, I 
faltered. The edge of the sheet nearest the Canada side, from 
its rude and fretting contact with the shore above, comes down 
with a stain of reddish brown. Near Termination Rock, you 
pass by that dim border of the Fall, and exchanging recent dark- 
ness for the green and spectral light struggling through the thick 
water, you are enabled to discern where you are. My God ! It 
is enough to make an earth-tried angel shudder, familiar though 
he may be with the wonder-workings of the Eternal. Look up- 
ward ! There, forming a dismal curve over your head, and 
looming in the deceptive and unearthly light, to a seeming dis- 
tance of many hundred feet, moaning with that ceaseless anthem 
which trembles at their base, the rocks arise toward Heaven, 
covered with tfie green ooze of centuries, hanging in horrid 
shelves, and apparently on the very point of breaking with the 
weight of that accumulated sea which tumbles and howls over 
their upper verge ! There is no scene of sublimity on earth 
comparable to this. You stand beneath the rushing tributes from 
a hundred lakes ; you seem to hear the wailings of imprisoned 
spirits, until, fraught and filled with the spirit of the scene, you 
exclaim, ' There is a God! and this vast cataract, awful, over- 
powering as it is, is but a plaything of his hand !' 



There is one dreadful illusion to which the untrained eye is 
subject, under this water-avalanche. You know, travelled reader, 
that when you journey swiftly in a rail-road car, the landscape 
seems moving past you with the speed of lightning. You see 
distant trees and fields, apparently out of compliment to^he loco- 
motive, wheeling off obsequiously to the right and left. Every 
grove seems engaged in a rigadoon. This illmo visus is particu- 
larly discernible on the face of Niagara, when you are beneath the 
Falls. Look at the sheet but for one moment, and you find yourself 



OLLAPODIANA. 161 

rising upward with the swiftness of thought. Turning your 
eye to the rocky wall which bounds you, for a moment you givte 
a side-long glance at its dizzy extent. Heavens ! what was that 
noise ? Did not a portion of the rock above, some massy moun- 
tain of stone, then fall ? No, it was only the thunder of com- 
mhigled rajpids, which united at the edge of the precipice, and 
rushed impetuously into the abyss together. It is this which 
makes such heavy music, such solemn tones, in the distant voice 
of Niagara. 

A MOST thorough bath, such a one as I never took before, 
gave me, after my changed dress, and proper probation, a supe- 
rior appetite for joining a supper party at the Pavilion. I re- 
member the pleasure I once enjoyed, during a summer sojourn 
at West Point among congenial spirits. Every day, at dinner, in 
the large mirrors which bedeck the dining saloon at Cozzen's 
capital establishment, what time we discussed viands and wines, 
I could see the reflected Hudson and its shores, the distant 
mountains towering into the sky, and steam-craft moving ; while 

• from town to town, 



The snowy sails went gleaming down.' 

You seem to think, if you are anything of an economist, at 
Niagara, that you are likely to get from your host the looi'th of 
your money. He gives you ' green or black tea,' and all the ap- 
pointments of a good supper, and he flings in a view of Niagara 
from the dining-room windows, without any extra expense ! Its 
music shakes vour hand as you lift your coffee to your lip ; its 
bounding and agitated lapse smites your eye, as you sip the juice 
of the Moclvi berry, yet you never find it i' the bill. If you wish 
to heflcead, however, employ a guide to tell you when is the 
time to say ' Good gracious ! how sublime !' and to show you 
the thousand little nothings in the vicinity of the Falls, which, 
compared with them, are as it might be to pit a flea in fight 
aga/'nst a lion or an elephant. Ye blind guides ! door-keepers 
of the gates of sublimity, which you can not speak of or describe, 
save in the stale terms of business ! Ye tell a man whose heart 
and mind are overflowing with awe and wonder whe7i to use his 
eyes ! Ye are varlets all ; akin to that enterprising man, men- 
tioned, if I mistake not, by Goldsmith, w^ho issued proposals to 
bite off" his own nose by subscription ; or, rather, to that builder 
of chapcaux, who exclaimed in a paroxysm of delight, as he 
stood at the foot of the Canada Fall, ' By the Lord ! what a 
glorious place yb?- washing hats!' 

11 



162 OLLAPODIANA. 

Well, I have sojourned near and surveyed Niagara, until it 
is pictured in my mind, and 1 Icnovv it as it were a favorite book. 
A word here, then, to tourists who have that chief marvel of the 
world to see. There will perhaps be disappointment in a far-off 
view, as you go from the south ; for the majestic rush of the 
rapids, and the heavy plunge of the fall, you can not see. To 
my New Yorlc reader I can give a simile. Supposing the Hud- 
son ran from the bay of your metropolis rapidly to the north. 
Plant its shores, from the city to the Palisades, with bold head- 
lands and ancient forests. At the Palisades, let the river break 
off, and fall to the distance of between one and two hundred feet, 
and then go heaving onward to Sing-Sing, through a huge natu- 
ral canal, wide as itself, crowned, at the top of the high pre- 
cipices which border its sides, with shaggy pines and hemlocks, 
and flowery shrubs and parasites, where the vulture wheels, and 
the boding owl makes bis complaint at evening. This is a faint 
idea of Niagara. \ ou should sit for hours, in the eastern portico 
of the Pavilion, looking at the waves as they rush over the 
Horse-Shoe Fall. Continually, large masses of them, green as 
the richest verd-antique, shoot in blended company down into 
the ' abysm of hell' beneath. From this point they are full of 
beauty. Unable to keep together, they burst into foam ; so that 
the continual recurrence of this has the effect ofia long waste of 
the finest embroidery, in flowers, leaves, and vines, on a ground 
of green. Over them plays the rainbow, spanning them with its 
heavenly arch, and shining lovingly upon the madness of which 
it is created ; stretching itself to the distant island, where its 
ethereal colors smile on the rich woods and goldeh v/aters. There, 
in the portico aforesaid, is the place to sit and inlj- ruminate. I 
saw one fat John Bull, ' a round and stocky man,' In a checked 
travelling shirt, and a swallow-tailed coat, whose skii+s were al- 
most pulled round beneath his arms, standing like soxiie corpu- 
lent fowl on the last ledge of Table Rock, peering into the Falls, 
then only about ten or twelve feet from his side, with a telescope 
twice as long as his body ! It was a pure specimen of the tub- 
lime and the ridiculous. 



Here let me play the counsellor to the visiter at Niagara. I 
offer my opinion with confident diffidence. Doubtless you desire 
to receive at the Falls, and to carry away with you, the strongest 
impression. Do not therefore go down to the foot of the cata- 
ract on the Canada side. Take your coiqj cVceil as you drive in 
your carriage to the Pavilion. Take your supper there, as did 
the goodly company of your adviser, Ollapod. Supposing you 



OLLAPODIANA. 163 

are an American — whicii I trust you are — you will of course 
feel a sort of pride in believing that the best view is on the Ame'r- 
ican side. And so it is : yet to look at the United States' part 
of the cataract, you would say it was a mere mill-dam. It is 
thus that. distance deceives. You cannot see the movement of 
that far-ofi water, or hear distinctly the horrid sound with which 
it plunges from its cloud-kissing elevation to the depths below. 
But if you would obtain the deepest and strongest thoughts of 
Niagara, do as I say. Observe the semicircular cataract on the 
Canada side from the esplanade of the Pavilion, but do not go 
down to the base of the Fall. Let the view remain upon your 
mind as a beautiful picture ; keep the music in your ear, for it 
is a stern and many-toned music, that you cannot choose but 
hear. Order the coachman to transport your luggage to the ferry 
below the Falls — some mile or so. There embark : you will 
hefrightcfird, doubtless, as you gaze to the south, and see the 
awful torrent pouring down upon you ; but you may take the 
word of the ferry-man that for some dozen or twenty years he has 
never met with an accident : you may believe him, for the air of 
truth breathes through his large grim whiskers. You will see the 
waves curling their turbulent tops, and dark rocks emerging from 
their milky current and seething foam, within a yard of your 
prow — but be ndt afraid. You are soon at the foot of 

THE AMERICAN STAIR-CASE. 

And here, after all, kind reader, is the place for a view. Do not 
look about you much. Be content with the thunder in your ears, 
and wait until some practised and tasteful observer, kindly acting 
as your cicerone, bids you stop just at that point on the stair-case 
where the plunging river, on the American side, dashes down- 
ward in its propulsive journey. There, by the onward plunge 
of the cataract, which bounds in a ridge over the abyss, descri- 
bing as it were a circidar fall, the view of Goat-Island is com- 
pletely cut off, and the whole sweep of the Falls — Canadian, 
American, and all — is seen at once; apparently one unbroken 
waste of stormy and tumultuous waters. You must be a demi- 
god, if you can stand on that hallowed ground, shaking with the 
accents of a God, spanned with His bow, resounding with His 
strength, and laughing in His smile, without emotions of inde- 
scribable wonder. Thus, with a trembling hand, and a spirit 
saturated with the grandeur of the scene, Ollapod pencilled his 
hasty, weak, and inexpressive scrawl : 

Here speaks the voice of God ! Let man be dumb, 
Nor, with his vain aspirings, hither come ; 



164 OLLAPODIANA. 

That voice impels these hollow-sounding floods, 
And with its presence shakes the distant woods ; 
These groaning rocks the Almighty's finger piled ; 
For ages here His painted bow has smiled ; 
Mocking the changes and the chance of time — 
s Eternal — beautiful — serene — sublime I 



For the rest; as touching the sound of Niagara; our wan- 
derings over Goat Island ; the fair friends we met perambulating 
there; with divers other peregrinations; the journey toward the 
orient; the scenes of Lewiston, Queenston, Lockport, Roch- 
ester — that lovely and most hospitable city; shall they not be 
presented to thee, kind reader, in the next subsections of 

Thine, heartily, and to serve, Ollapod. 



NUMBER SIXTEEN. 

January, 1837. 

Beloved Reader : We parted company at the foot of the 
staircase, leading from the foamy current of Niagara — up — up, 
as it were from the caverns of Pandemonium to Paradise — to 
*the American side.' Let me act as a guide-book to your eyes, 
while we proceed. 

Look backward, occasionally, whenever you have opportunity, 
through the apertures of your pathway, at the clouds of mist that 
circle into rainbows around you, and at the milk-white torrent 
which rolls and murmurs beneath. Far below you, ' moves 
one that gathers luggage.' You shall see him with your trunks 
*and carpet-bags, climbing the dizzy steppes in your trail, the 
omega of your party, until you find yourselves in the land of 
Jonathan. 

Apparently, you are in a forest. A few cottages are skirting 
its edge, or the neighborhood round about; but beyond, all seems 
ancient and primeval. You almost look to encounter an Indian. 
But the Great Cataract is at your side, and where it breaks off 
into the cloudy eternity below, which now you cannot see, the 
green verdure slopes to the very edge of the precipice, marked 
with the shoe-prints of a thousand feet. What fairy shapes of 
pretty soles are there ! Of some, Ollapod was constrained to 
say, ' Surely, these delicate marks indicate that the pedal pres- 
sure of those who made them would scarcely leave its impress 
upon the fringed gentian, or the upspringing lily.' 

Slowly and contemplatively we lingered about this haunted 



OLLAPODIANA. 165 

and hollow-sounding region. It seemed, indeed, as it' the earth 
beneath, to its centre, and the heavens above, even to the abyss 
of the empyrean, were shaking and vocal with ' the sound of 
many waters.' There is no escaping from the voice of Niagara. 
Go where you will ; wander for miles and miles from its green 
and changeful vortex ; yet your ear drinks in its deep and solemn 
melody. For me, in one hour during the many I passed in its 
hearing, I deserted all my companions, and roamed for a league 
into the melancholy shades. Was I beyond the warning that 
Niagara was nigh ? Not so. On every gale came that vast and 
solemn concert of water-sounds ; the humming middle-gush, the 
high-measured roll and gurgle, the awful under-tone ! They 
seemed iojill all the air. It is not like thunder ; not like the 
murmurs of the coming whirlwind, nor the troubled groan of a 
volcano. It pervades the landscape round ; the leaves tremble 
at its breath ; the bird shrieks, as if in fear, and springing from 
the branch that overlooks the stream, soars through rainbows and 
bright clouds beyond the scene. The cataract utters its horrid 
whereabout on every breeze. You listen to its murmurs, until 
the heart is intoxicated with their sublimity, and the eye moist 
with emotion. Now they sound like the crackling flames, spread- 
ing for leagues over mountain woodlands ; then like doleful bells, 
heard at intervals in the pauses of a funeral ; then, like 

'The rolling of triumphant wheels, the harpin<:;s in the hall, 
The far-off shouts of multitudes are in their rise and fall.' 

Alternately stormy and plaintive, deep and faint, as the wings of 
the wind aspire or are depressed, they create a mingled and 
many-toned diapason, which, to be felt, must be heard ; and to 
be heard, must be remembered for ever. They are like the 
blast of the tempest, as described in ' The Auntient Mariners,' 

when 

' his sails did sii:;h like sedge, 

As the rain poured down from one black cloud, 

While the moon was at its edge : 
When the roaring wind did roar far off. 

It did not come anear; 
But with its sound it shook the sails. 

That were so thin and sere.' 



Do NOT, good reader, go bounding rapidly through and among 
the scenery on the American side of Niagara, with a fleet foot- 
step and an unobservant eye, but use all gently. Thus did we. 
Every tree you meet, almost, contains the initials of the thousands 
who have come and gone from that overpowering and magnifi- 
cent wonder. We pushed onward, without care or sorrow, filled 



16() OLLAPODIANA. 

and intoxicated with admiration, and wist not, as it were, whither 
we went. 

Crossing a fearfid bridge, we reached Goat-Island ; but 
Ollapod, lagging behind his less imaginative companions, stood 
in the middle of that frail causeway, and listened and gazed upon 
the mad waves of a river, as they dashed and growled beneath ; 
seeming himself, meanwhile, to be rushing ' up stream,' as if 
astride of a comet. Yet this river, as viewed from the Canada 
side, appears like a silver ribbon, flaunting in bright relief against 
a back-ground of sable rock, and forms but the merest tithe of 
the American Fall. 

How many sublime and pleasant recollections fill my mind, 
as I call up, in the stillness of this autumnal and contemplative 
evening, that magnificent scene ! In the quiet of my domestic 
retirement, the last leaves of summer quivering at my window, 
with low and melancholy whispers; pale statues (thou, Bard of 
Eden, and thou. Swan of Avon, and ye. Muses of Greece, 
whose presence still haunts, or seems to haunt, the olive woods, 
by streams of old renown !) gleam, and send their shadows along 
the wall ; but I go back, on the wings of memory, to those cloud- 
less and soul-fraught hours, until the voice of Niagara is in my 
ear, and the bounding impulse of its tide seems gathering in my 
apartment. I am lost in recollection: 

' WhEiX eve is purpling cliff and cave, 

Tiioughts of the heart I how soft ye flow ! 
Not softer, on tlie western wave 

The golden lines of sunset glow. 
Then all by chance or fate removed, 

Like spirits, crowd npon the eye; 
The few we liked — the one we loved, 

And all the heart is memory !' 



That was a beautiful and placid face, which we encountered 
on our way to the island ; yea, and a sweetly-moulded form. I 
remember it well ; and so do all who have sojourned, transiently 
or long, among the elysian bowers of ?<ew-Haven. Charming 

De F ! The queen of Commencements, and Junior Ex- 

Jiibitions ! Cynosure of sophomore eyes, with an atmosphere 
about thee of music and the frankincense of youth ! Idol of un- 
I'ewn and wondering freshmen, who gaze at thee as they would 
at a distant star, moving in brightness through the dark blue 
depths of Heaven ! Who, wedded and blessed, or single and 
hipped, but would look upon thee as a stimptuous and beauteous 
piciure? No one, be it confidently averred, in whose mind a 



OLLAPODIANA. 167 

taste for grace and loveliness were not ' clean gone for ever.' 
Thou art associated in ray memory with the sun-bows and gre^n 
woods and waters of Niagara ; and art destined there to last, 

• Unto tbyike day i' the which I shall crepe 
Into my sepulchre' 



One thing will impress you, as you wander about Goat-Island. 
After you have stood upon the high rocky tower, (connected by 
a quivering plank, as it were, with the awful edge of the preci- 
pice,) and looked for miles around you, upon a waste of stormy 
waters, plunge at once into the quiet and wooded paths of the 
island. Travel on — on — on. Nov.^, you may fancy that you 
are alone, and Niagara out of hearing. Is it so '( Pause a mo- 
ment. There comes through the thick leaves and branches 
around you, though you are Jar from the Falls, a many-toned 
and hollov^r voice, which makes every leaf to tremble. The 
light stems thrill to the rushing breath of the cataract. Yet it is 
not sudden, like the sound of a cannon, or the pealing of the 
thunder : it is constant, yet changeful ; heavy and solemn ; yet 
at times, fairy and musical : but it Jills all the air. There is no 
pause, no cessation, no stay. The roar is eternal. It is the ut- 
terance of the God who lifted that horrid ledge into heaven, and 
stretched that awful chasm for leagues toward the frozen pole. 



Fail not, tourist, to visit the Cave of the Winds, and to go 
southwardly from the Bibdle stair-case, under the American 
ledge. Mind not the tempest, which will sweep over you occa- 
sionally from the distant cataract, in a cloud of spray on the 
wings of the gale. There is inspiration in the heart, as you in- 
hale the awful hymn-notes of the torrent, and the freshness of 
that watery air. It is like breathing upon a high mountain in 
winter, above a wide plain, where a wider stretch of white fades 
at last, on the edge of the horizon, into a universal blue. Look 
up, ever and anon. How fearfully those heavy pines look over 
the ledges, at the height of many a hundred feet ! There the 
blue sky looks down upon you, and the fleecy cloud — child of 
the waters and the morning — unfolds its skirts of fleecy gold! 
Beautiful, awful, impressive scene ! 



They told us a good story of an Irishman and Scotchman, 
from Canada, who came on the American side last winter, to 
settle an ancient grudge by fisticuffs. ' They fought like brave 
men, long and well ;' long hung the contest doubtful ; and tlie 
by-standers vvnst not which should prevail ; whether or shamrock 



168 OLLAPODIANA. 

or thistle. At last the antagonists fell to the ground ; they rolled 
to the edge of the river ; one, minus his linsey-woolsey coat-tail, 
clung to some shrubbery on the precipitous bank ; the other fell 
to the distance of sixty feet, saving his life by striking among 
the thick boughs of a parasitical tree growing out of the rock, and 
festooned witli thick vines, the seed of which some wandering 
breeze had wafted to a fissure in the rock, where it had been 
nourished by the presence of leaf-dust and spray, until it had 
flourished into strong and vigorous fertility. The discomfited 
warrior was drawn up by a rope, let down for his aid, and hooked 
to his wounded inexpressibles, having fallen only a small part 
of the distance to the river's bed. 



A DAY or two (employed in good dinners at the Cataract 
House, a personal inspection and liberal purchases of Indian 
gimcrackeries on the Island, leave-takings with friends, appoint- 
ments for Saratoga, Rockaway, Trenton, or Newport) can be 
passed richly at Niagara. H you have an ounce of poetry 
about you, reader, remain there until you can go the whole cir- 
cuit on every side, and in every quarter — alone. Go out, free 
from all human presence, and hold communion with your God. 
So shall you bring awKj with you cherished and kindling thoughts, 
never to die. 

We bowled briskly away from the Cataract Hotel, one rainy 
afternoon ; the mud was up to the axle of our extra ; and as we 
wheeled around an opening through the thick shrubbery, on our 
way to Lewiston, not far from the The DeviVs Hole, a polite 
name given to a horrid chasm in the rocky wall which bounds 
Niagara on either side, from Queenston to the PaviHon, I caught 
my parting view of The Wonder. Down rolled that heavy 
stretch of wide and foaming waters, the spray rising in clouds 
from its base ; the wreathing vapors making themselves wings for 
the wind, and ready to sail away, like airy messengers, perhaps 
to be steeped in sunlight over Lake Erie, so that they which but 
a little while before were mounting with thunder in their bosoms, 
could soar away and be at rest. 



As you journey to the North, Dan Tourist, forget not to pause 
on the brow of that long hill which overlooketh the old town of 
Queenston, in Canada, the monument of Brock, and eke the 
town of Lewiston on the republican side. As we neared this 
spot, the sun broke out from his hiding place, and diffused over 
the landscape, for many, many leagues, a sweet and melancholy 



OLLAPODIANA. 169 

smile. Magnificent sight ! The monument, arose like a shaft 
of ebony against a sky of the richest crimson. Old Niagara 
went meandering onward to Ontario, like a vast serpent of gold, 
creeping through a landscape of surpassing loveliness. The 
Mother and the Daughter of two countries seemed brought to- 
gether in loving propinquity ; and the hills afar, the vales be- 
tween, 'the rain drops glittering on the trees around,' and the 
trembling leaves, gave melody to the breeze and beauty to the 
eye. 

Before we supped, I opened the window of our hostelrie at 
Lewiston, to catch the last sound of the Falls. On the fitful 
gusts, and swayed to full or gentle modulations by the creeping 
tides of air that swept through the twilight, came ' the voice of 
many waters.' Harp sublime ! Anthem unending ! Organ of 
the Almighty ! I seem to hear thee still ! 



If you visit Niagara, I thinlc I would perform the journey in 
October. Oh, when the trees are clothed in their many-colored 
autumnal robes ; when the day-god goes to his rest as a monarch 
goes to his slumbers, drawing around him his curtains of purple 
and gold ; when the mellow fruits drop richly from the trees in 
thine orchard ; when the honey-locust leaf, or ' ash, deep crim- 
soned,' falls to the ground ; 

• When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the leaves are still. 
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill.' 

then go to Niagara. You will return with the chastening solem- 
nity of the season upon you ; with emblems of eternity in your 
mind ; with remembered whispers of a God sounding in your 
ear, and with thanks to Him 

'Who made the world, and heaped the waters far 
Above its loftiest mountains.' 



Stood at the door of the Cataract Hotel, on the American 
side, while the postilion was placing their ' travelling dress' upon 
his cattle, and watched a handsome squaw trudge through the 
heavy rain, with a papoose, or young baby, at her back, covered 
with a white blanket, and suspended by a wampum belt from her 
forehead. How statelily she stepped ! She had the walk of an 
empress, as she bounded away into the woods. Poor soul ! 
Probably on her way to her lonely wigwam, to lament in the 
autumn, when the sun goes down in an ocean of rainbow-colored 



170 OLLAPODIANA. 

foliage, and the wilderness echoes to the moan of the dying year, 
the departing glories of her race, 

'Like thee, thou sun, to die.' 

Exceedingly amused at the air and manner of a decided 
* loafer,' a sentimentalist withal, and a toper, who had come out of 
his way from Buffalo to see the Falls. ' Landlord !' said he, to 
the Boniface of the Cataract, ' and you, gentlemen, who stand on 
this porch, witnessing this pitiless rain, you see before you one 
who has a tempest of sorrows a-beatin' upon his head continually. 
Wanst I was wo'th twenty thousand dollars, and I driv the sad- 
dling profession. Circumstances alters cases ; now I wish for to 
solicit charity. Some of you seems benevolent, and I do be- 
lieve I am not destined to rank myself among those who could 
travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say all is barren. No, I scorn 
to brag ; but I am intelligent beyond my years, and my educa- 
tion has been complete. I have read Wolney's Ruins, Mar- 
shall's Life of Washington, and Pope's Easy on Man, and most 
of the literature of the day, as contained in the small newspapers. 
But the way I'm situated at present, is scandalous. The fact is, 
my heart is broke, and I'm just Ishmaelizing about the globe, 
with a sombre brow, and a bosom laden w^th wo. Who will 
help me — speak singly, gentlemen — who will 'ease my griefs, 
and drive my cares away V as Isaac Watts says, in one of his 
devotional poems.' 

No answer was returned. A general laugh arose. The pride 
of the mendicant was excited : rage got the better of his hu- 
mility ; and shaking his fist in the face of the by-standers, he 
roared out : 

' You're all a pack of poor, or'nary common people. You 
insult honest poverty ; but I do not ' hang my head for a' that,' 
as Burns saj's. I will chastise any man here, for two three-cent 
drinks of Monagohalc whiskey ; yes, though I have but lately 
escaped shipwreck, coming from Michigan to Buffalo, and am 
weak from loss of strength ; yet 1 will whip the best of you. Let 
any on ye come over to the I31ack Rock Rail-road Dee-pott, and 
I'll lick him (ilc. a d—nr 

* Never mind that,' said one ; ' tell us about the shipwreck.' 

'Ah!' he continued, 'that ivas a scene! Twenty miles out 
at sea, on the lake ; the storm bustin' upon the deck ; the waves, 
like mad tailors, making breeches over it continually ; the light- 
nings a bustin' overhead, and hissing in the water ; the clouds 
meeting the earth ; the land just over the lee-bow ; every mast 
in splinters ; every sail in rags; women a-screechin' ; farmers' 



OLLAPODIANA. 171 

wives einigratin' to the west calling for their husbands ; and hell 
yawnin' all around ! A good many was dreadfully sea-sick ; and 
one man, after casting forth everything beside, with a violent 
retch, threw up his boots. Oh, gentlemen, it v\'as awful ! At 
length came the last and destructivest billow. It struck the ship 
on the left side, in the neighborhood of the poop, and all at 
wanst I felt something under us breakin' away. The vessel was 
parting ! One half the crew was drowned ; passengers was pray.- 
ing, and commending themselves to heaven. I alone, escaped 
the watery doom.' 

' And how did you manage to redeem yourself from destruc- 
tion ?' was the general inquiry. 

' Why, gentlemen, the fact is, I seen how things was a-goin', 
and I took my hat and went, ashore /' 

The last I saw of this Munchausen, was as our coach wheeled 
away. He had achieved a ' drink,' and was perambulating 
through the mud, lightened, momentarily, of his sorrows. 

As you journey to the North, from Niagara to Lewiston, you 
catch, ever and anon, through the leafy screen of the trees, dis- 
tant views of the Great Cataract. In the pauses of your carriage 
wheels, come the thunder of the torrent and the dimness of the 
spray. On your left, there is ' a great gulf fixed, ^ to which the 
Gulf of Hades might be imagined to have resemblance. Now 
and then, crowned Avith glittering rainbows, you see the Falls, hke 
the ' great white sheet let down from Heaven,' as beheld of old 
in the portable larder that met the apostle's startled vision. Then 
a thickening cloud of spray, filled with ' thunderings and voices,' 
hides it from your view. Mile after mile, you continue your 
tour, the great Gulf still at your side, the complaining river roll- 
ing apparently leagues beneath you ; horrid chasms and frowning 
precipices, around whose bases the foaming waves eddy and 
howl ; until, by and by, you ascend that incomparable hill which 
overlooks the scenes of Lewiston and Queenston. The delight- 
ed eye beholds the sinking current grow calmer and calmer ; the 
blue vistas of Canadian woods and plains stretch themselves in 
blending colors and undulations to the f\ir and fairy radius of the 
horizon ; and as the river rolls onward to the Ontario, like a huge 
serpent of gold winding through the landscape ; as the tall shaft 
of Brock's monument paints its delicate outline against the even- 
ing sky, and the fainter sound of the distant cataract is taken on 
the freshening wind, among the far-off cedars, waving against a 
gush of farewell crimson in the west ; the scene is inspiration, 
and the place becomes religion. 



172 OLLAPODIANA. 

While our supper was in preparation at Lewiston, I opened 
the window which looked toward the South, in the direction 
whence we had come. Haply, thought I, the cataract may yet 
send its farewell voice to my ear. I listened attentively, auribus 
erectis, and solemnly on the swelling gusts and creeping murmurs 
of the evening, as they rose and fell, swayed by the sweeping of 
the tides of air, came the majestic hum and air-tremble of the 
Falls !* How impressive was that sound ! Throned afar in the 
forest ; sceptred with its gorgeous coronet of lunar rainbows ; its 
regal impulse rushing through the darkness on the wings of the 
wind ; Niagara lifted to heaven its vocal and eternal anthem ! How 
many generations, thought I, shall come and go ; how many 
loving hearts go back to dust ; how many lips be dumb in death, 

and their soft breath with pain 



Be yielded to the elements again, 

before Niagara shall be tuneless, or its stormy tones be muffled ! 
Power more than kingly ! Voice, louder and steadier than the 
clangor of battle, or the peal of the ephemeral earthquake, ingulf- 
ing plains and cities ! In the language of the bard, ' Thy days 
are everlasting !' Thou camest from the palm of Him who hath 
measured the earth, and who sees the pestilence stain the noon- 
day at his bidding ! Who that breathes, will ever behold the 
consummation of thy destiny ? None ! Autumn after autumn, 
with its gold-dropping orchards, its painted woodlands and hollow 
sighs shall come and go ; spring will prank the earth with vio- 
lets and verdure ; summer shall glow, and deadly winter pale the 
earth ; but over all thou will triumph, until this sphere shall 
heave at the voice of the Almighty, and the trump of the Arch- 
angel ! 

Of the road from Lewiston to Lockport, and of that famous 
country town, what shall I say? I would say nothing — but I 
must say something. I feel in the predicament wherein is placed 
DEiOfis BuLGRUDDERY, in the play, with respect of his rib. 
* I can hear nothing bad of her,' he says to a guest at the ' Red 
Cow,' which hotel he kept ; ' you can say nothing good of her, 
without telling a d — d lie ; and in coorse, the less you say, the 
better.' Thus I am situated and circumstanced, as touching the 
road and last place herein before mentioned. 

With a postillion (of the just-adopted Telegraph) dressed in a 
flaming red coat, for which he had exchanged his own for a ' con- 
sideration,' with a deserting private in the Canadian army, we 

* There Is a repetition of certain impressions here, owing to a misdirection on the original 
MS. 1 have thought it best, however, to retain the original form. EoiToa. 



OLLAPODIANA. 173 

pushed slowly on from Lewiston to Lockport. Mud, without 
end or bottom, alluvial pudding, thickened and gurgled on every 
side. Postillion was not to be hurried. No ; ' he was a fr^e 
Amerikin driver, be Gosh,' was his reply to one or two Birming- 
ham oi^Sheffield agents, hastening homeward in the next packet 
from New York ; ' and he guessed that anybody that vi^ent for to 
stir him up in the lively line, would get crucified and come over, 
almighty slick.' And he kept his word. Through pools, and 
over particularly stony and dangerous spots, he wended swift as 
Photon with his aerial team ; but where the thoroughfare was 
good, a snail would have distanced his lagging move. 



Lockport is famous for its deep cut in the canal. Repre- 
sentations of this great achievement I had seen in print, and had 
supposed that it was a marvel of the first water. It came to pass, 
therefore, when we saw the sole steeple of the village rising over 
a level country in the east, that we looked earnestly for the Deep 
Cut. We continued to gaze until we had reached the hotel, 
when we saUied forth in the rain, with a friend or two, in rabid 
quest of the wonder. The first view we obtained was from the 
village bridge. Never was there a more complete disappointment. 
The line of the canal, to the west, appears very like its usual long 
and snake-like length ; and I put it to the reader, if one very of- 
ten looks upon a more common thing than a canal, after you have 
travelled across, and alongside, and around it, for some two or 
three hundred miles ? This, then, was the Deep Cut ! Oh, 
minimum of marvels ! A look or two was suffegeance. It was 
a rainy day ; the village grocers were taking in their cod-fish and 
fly-bespotted macaroni ; every thing was gloomy and dismal : 
consequently it was resolved nem. con., to give the Deep Cut a 
dead cut, which was suddenly performed. 



In the lower town, our vehicular machinery stuck fast in the 
mud. This afforded time for a maiden lady, of whom I shall 
speak anon, to sally forth from an indifferent-looking domicil, 
near the upper quartier, and take her seat. At last the embed- 
ded wheels asserted their freedom, and went gushing along at the 
rate of a mile an hour, precisely like the pawing wheels of a 
steamboat in a heavy sea on Long Island Sound. 



Stopped a few minutes to say how-d'ye-do to a clever rela- 
tion. Found ample time for my purpose, while the coach was 
lumbering by. Looked out from his handsome law-office upon 
a wide domain of mud, and meadows filled with stumps, and 



174 OLLAPODIANA. 

ancient logs, reeking with the rain. Everything looked remorse- 
lessly unprepossessing. The clay in the road was of a yellowish 
cream color, some uniform fifteen inches deep, beside. Anathe- 
matized the tow'n to my sometime companion, averring solemnly 
unto him, that if Lockport were built of ducats, and the abflomen 
of every little hill in its neighborhood pregnant with precious 
stones and jewels, I would not there reside. I still hold my 
mind ; but mayhap a fair day, a robe of sunshine over that re- 
gion, and other appliances and pleasaunces to boot, w^ould have 
altered my opinions. But what I 've writ, I 've wTit ; perchance 
unjustly to the place. But ' situated, and I might add, circum- 
stanced as I was,' and with my present memories, I must say 
* them's my sentiments.' Fair words I blow to the winds, and 
candor reigns supreme. Yet I have heard those whose judgment 
is law with me on the subject of scenery, declare that Lockport 
is possessed of delightful haunts ; that the neighborhood around 
is like a paradise, in summer. I will believe them ; and I charge 
the elements wuth the verdict of my first impressions. 



We soon found that the maiden lady who entered at Lockport 
was a person of great scholastic acquirements, and of a very com- 
municative turn of mind. A iew miles from that town, (which 
whoso entereth, if in our way of thought, will reach without emo- 
tion and leave without regret,) we entered, out of a lonely and 
muddy turnpike, much the same as that at Lockport, upon that 
delectable road, denominated Ridge. It is good in rain or shine. 
Some inquiries being made, whether we were not on better 
ground, the maiden oped her vocal orifice, and observed : 'A'yes ; 
that were the Ridge-d Road which we have stricken, on the 
brow of the hill, o'er which the driver have just riz !' 

Shortly after this, she abdicated, and was deposited at the 
house of a friend by the way-side. 



What shall I say of Rochester, one of the Queens of the 
West ? The approach to it is through a delicious country, that 
will yet be cultured by the hand of taste into a very Eden. What 
fair embow^ered towns, with their white steeples, occur at inter- 
vals on every side ! What a sweet and rosy generation is rising 
around ! We saw them, as it were, by legions ; fine heahhy re- 
sponsibilities, courtesying or bowing to the traveller, their shining 
faces illumined with intelligence, made brighter at the school 
from which they w^ent and came. 

The entrance to Rochester, from the West, is impressive by 
contrast ; and when you are once ratding over its pavements, and 



OLLAPODIANA. 176 

tlirough its long streets, you fancy yourself in New York, or eke 
in Philadelphia. The suburbs are beautiful. I envied so deep- 
ly the lot of some certain friends who escorted us along the banks 
of the fair Genesee, and showed us the Falls of that charming: 
river, that their residences still rise to my eye as the very acme 
of rural establishments. From the roof of one, (which must be a 
palace anon,) I looked dovvn upon flowery walks, the sparkling cat- 
aract, the vast pine forests to the north ; the blue Ontario beyond ; 
the city, with its turrets, some of which are like those which peer 
above an old feudal town in Europe; upon rail-cars rattling to and 
fro, while the horns of canal-men came musically upon the breeze ; 
upon the shady dwellings of good old friends in the suburbs ; and 
as I looked, I said, ' This shall he glorijicd by OllapodP 



In a survey of the environs of Rochester, there is enough to 
kindle the dullest imagination. Prophecy itself will be distanced 
in its predictions by the swift-coming future. To-day, you 
may wander over a flowery meadow, or through the tangled 
thickets of a forest, scarcely as yet redeemed from the darkness 
of the past ; to-morrow, the new street springs into being ; the 
bustle of trade fills the late quiet atmosphere ; the flouring mill 
sends its busy wheels round and round ; the clink of the black- 
smith's hammer, the hum of the cotton-gin, the saw of the car- 
penter : all the sounds and sights of city life, greet your ear and 
your vision. As I journeyed with attentive friends in the suburbs, 
I pointed out to them places where country seats could be erect- 
ed, in the most calm and poetical retreats. Alas ! I found too 
soon, that these sweet recesses were already marked out in vil- 
lage lots, and that within ' an incredibly short space of time,' 
they would be converted into paved thoroughfares, and manufac- 
turing or commercial blocks ! 

One sees enough in these embryo cities of the West, to dis- 
suade him from anything like prophecy. The barren place, 
touched by the wand of enterprise, springs at once into newness 
of life : a community, famed for pure morality, and the honest 
but unbending and resolute energies of its members, as in the 
case of Rochester, goes on from strength to strength, until its 
friends become surprised with unexpected triumphs, the traveller 
amazed at the increase of population, and the patriot charmed 
with the prospect of days to come. For me, there is something 
of sadness in this stirring and changeful scene. By and by, the 
music of the pine will be lost to the gale ; the cataract will min- 
ister to the stomachs of a voracious public ; and the wave that 
laughed and tumbled picturesquely in the sunshine, will be se- 



176 OLLAPODIANA. 

duced into the mill-race, or made to minister to the dollar-and- 
cent gyrations of the spinning jenny ! Oh, dreadful profanation! 
But few will lament the loss of the forest or the torrent, when 
the ' almighty dollar' can be made, by their subserviency or their 
removal, to propagate and fructify ! 



Well — perhaps it is best. You can not satisfy one gastro- 
nomic craving with a green tree or a golden sunset ; and a water- 
fall butters no parsnips. Your turnip will not come from a cloud, 
nor will your requisite potato drop from a rainbow. Neither do 
beef-steaks come from the moon. Wherefore, while there are 
abdominal cavities to be refreshed, for the benefit of frail human- 
ity ; while rosy lips are but the glowing gateways of pork, and 
beans, and cabbage ; while these exist, with their diurnal wants 
and requirements, it will be quite useless to gainsay their de- 
mands, or to sentimentalize upon their unpoetical aspects. 

Wherefore, 1 pray and beseech of you, worthy reader, not to 
expect that I shall, on every occasion, burst forth, like a steamer 
at the highest heat, into the misty utterance of poetry and of 
romance. Let us congratulate each other upon our country. It 
is a glorious one — do n't you think so? Are you an American? 
Give us your hand ! You like the stars, the eagle, and the 
stripes — do you not? Give us another grip ! We shall shortly 
meet again. Are you going? Give us a lock of your hair. 
No? Well — never mind; we shall meet again. Till then, 
GoD bless you ! Ever thine, Ollapod. 



NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 

March, 1837. 

' Give you good den,' Reader. We have been deprived of 
each other's companionship for several weeks, and for my part I 
am becoming lonesome without your eye. I love that you should 
scrutinize my sentences ; appreciate a good thing, if I happen to 
acquit myself thereof ; and use that thrice blessed quality of for- 
giveness with respect to a bad one. It pleases me to think that 
eyes whose mortal glance will probably never meet my own, may 
linger for a moment on my page, and that some thought may be 
conveyed, through those starry and lustrous media, to a spirit not 
displeased. 



OLLAPODIANA. 177 

Some of my contemporaries have supposed that the estate of 
a Benedict forbiddeth the resident therein to disport himself «s 
aforetime, in the flowery fields of fancy, and to ambulate at ran- 
dom through the remembered groves of the academy, or the rich 
gardens of imaginative delight. Verily this is not so. To the 
right-minded man, all these enjoyments are increased ; the ties 
that bind him to earth are strengthened and multiplied : he anti- 
cipates new affections and pleasures, which your cold individual, 
careering solus through a vale of tears, with no one to share with 
him his gouts of optical salt water, wots not of. As a beloved 
friend once said unto me : ' When a good man weds, as when 
he dies, angels lead his spirit into a quiet land, full of holiness 
and peace ; full of all pleasant sights, and ' beautiful exceeding- 
ly.' One's dreams may not all be realized, for dreams never are ; 
but the reality will differ from, and be a thousand fold sweeter, 
than any dreams ; those shadowy and impalpable though gor- 
geous enitties, that flit over the twihght of the soul, after the sun 
of judgment has set. I never hear of a friend having accomplish- 
ed hymenization, without sending after him a world of good 
wishes and honest prayers. Amid the ambition, the selfishness, 
the heartless jostling with the world, which every son of Adam is 
obliged more or less to encounter, it is no common blessing to 
retire therefrom into the calm recesses of domestic existence, and 
to feel around your temples the airs that are wafted from fragrant 
wings of the Spirit of Peace, soft as the breath which curled the 
crystal light 

' of Zion's fountains, 

When love, and hope, and joy were hers. 
And beautiful upon her mountains. 
The feet of angel messengers.' 

No common boon is it — we speak in the rich sentence of a 
German writer — to enjoy 'a look into a pure loving eye; a 
word without falseness, from a bride without guile ; and close be- 
side you in the still watches of the night, a soft-breathing breast, 
in which there is nothing but paradise, a sermon, and a midnight 
prayer !' 



Old John Milton, whose pale statue looks down upon me 
with ' ful gret solempnite' from his niche, as I write, enlarges 
with great gusto upon the married state, and his verdict has been 
quoted a thousand times ; but I believe that respectable gentle- 
man, and tolerable author, found at last that the state matrimo- 
nial, as far as himself was concerned, was not so delectable as 
the airy tongue of fancy had syllabled to his ear. But the truth 

12 



178 OLLAPODIANA. 

is, Milton was not a fair judge. He was no more fitted to pos- 
sess a wife, than Richard the Third was. The reason is obvious. 
He was engaged in the construction of gorgeous castles in the 
air : spirits that ' play i' the plighted clouds' were his familiars ; 
and the battles that he superintended in heaven, and the hot work 
that he had of it in the other place, were enough to keep him in 
a perfect and constant fever. How could such a man come down 
to the bread-and-butter concerns of every day life ? — the gentle 
hint of Mr. Russell the tailor, with whom he boarded in Bunhill 
Fields, that it was about time to elevate the pecuniary quid pro 
quo for victuals and drink that had fulfilled their ofiices in his in- 
carnate tabernacle ? How could he go to the green grocer's and 
get a cabbage for Mrs. Milton, or anything of that sort, when he 
was busy in populating Pandemonium ? or see about procuring 
for himself a new pair of unwhisperables from his host, when he 
was engaged in arranging a throne for Apollyon, and drawing the 
convention of his peers together, to make speeches, and discuss 
matters of public interest ? Indeed, his kingdom was not of this 
world ; his mind soared away from the dim dust and smoke of 
London, up to the gates of Paradise, to pastures of eternal ver- 
dure, rivers of refreshing waters, and thoroughfares of bullion, 
glistering in the violet and golden radiance of an unfading sky. 
Supposing that one of his httle responsibilities had bawled in his 
ear for a sugar-plum, just at the moment when he had got Satan 
into one of his heaviest fights, a kind of gravy running from his 
wounds ? Would he not have exclaimed, petulantly, (in the iden- 
tical words which he puts into the mouth of the Arch-fiend,) ' Oh 
hell!' It is quite likely; and perhaps followed up the ejacula- 
tion with a box upon the ear of the young offender. The truth 
is, he was always in nubibus, or else above them ; his mental 
retina expanding, and drinking in the imperishable and glorious 
prospects of the upper world. He had not the serenity of Shaks- 
peare. His wing was not so strong ; but like ' the sail broad 
vans' of the Great Enemy, he waved them as if they were moved 
by the impetuous rush of a whirlwind. For the common things 
of this work-day world, he cared little or nothing. He was 
among men, but not o/'them. The only woman that he ever sin- 
cerely loved, was Eve. He attended to her with constant devo- 
tion. He prankt her pathway with roses : he spread around her 
the amaranth bowers and banks of Eden and Asphodel ; and the 
land which he bequeathed her, was, to use the language of an 
auctioneer's advertisement, ' well watered and timbered.' He 
hated Satan *■ as he did the devil ;' and I am inclined to think 
that he has exaggerated the demerits of that famous individual. 



OLLAPODIANA. 179 

But I am wandering. I demand back my spirit for other 
matters. 

Reader o' mine, have you been sleighing this winter? There 
were some three days of the genuine weather for that object, in 
the Philadelphia meridian, and the improvement thereof was 
great. Every one partook of the general joy. Little dogs ran 
like mad through the streets, and their barks were a mingling of 
laughter and yell, evidently the produce of excessive animal 
spirits. It was delightful to embark in a full sleigh, bells ringing 
cheerfully in the ear, the city lessening in the distance at one's 
back, and the broad white waste of the country expanding to the 
eye ! There is a sense of chastened solemnity about the dull 
brown woods, mingling afar w'ith the pale blueness of the distance, 
and the crimson of an evening sky, fading gradually behind their 
branches. 

* While soft, on icy pool and stream, 
Their pencilled shadows fall.' 

I hardly know of anything which carries me more forcibly back 
to younger and purer days, than a winter's scene. There is 
something in sleigh-ride remembrances that stirs a potent witche- 
ry of pleasure in the very depths of the heart. Sometimes when, 
after a heavy fall of snow, a southern wind has arisen, bringing 
rain upon its wings, and when the breath of Boreas has afterward 
breathed over it, in competition v/ith his opposite neighbor, a 
a gloss shines over the whole face of the earth ; and, as the sun 
rises or goes down, the entire radius of the horizon seems like a 
waving ocean of blue and gold ! Then to see the sun go down, 
or to see it rise ! Then to see the large dazzling stars in the 
vault of midnight, or the moon walking in brightness, or sus- 
pended like a vast balloon of transparent light in heaven ! Then 
the soul goes up to God : there is an eloquence in the stillness 
of the night ; the ear hums with silence, and fairy voices seem 
breathing from the snow. The unclouded grandeur of Omnipo- 
tence kindles the mind ; there is solemnity in the howl of the 
watch-dog from the hill-side ; in the sluggish clouds, rolling 
their languid and fleecy skirts upward from the horizon. 



Sleigh-riding and skating are my dehghts. Give me a sat- 
isfactory pair of high-dutchers, curled fantastically over the toe of 
my boots, the straps nicely adjusted, the line of steel ringing and 
thrilling along my sole, the Delaware or Fair-Mount dam for my 
theatre, and I can enact more wonders than a man ; playing such 
tricks before high heaven, that a disinterested angel might bend 



180 OLLAPODIANA. 

complacently from his pavilion in the upper air, to scrutinize my 
gyrations, and see how I performed. 

Sliding down the hill, on the other hand, is an eminent bore. 
I wonder at my urchin infatuation in having ever patronized it. 
There is such a world of labor, and such a meager amount of 
pleasure. One half of it, to use an appropriate phrase, is ' up- 
hill business.' If there are any young countrymen among my 
readers who have a lake in their neighborhood, I can tell them 
of a system greatly in vogue when I was a student. The follow- 
ing is the recipe : 

Take a pole, say twenty feet long ; place it on a little upright 
stick of wood, cut so that at the top two branches may be re- 
moved, so as to be something in the shape of a letter Y : let this 
be fastened in solid ice, when the lake is right firmly encrusted, 
and safe as a floor : then place the pole at the bottom of the 
triangle described by the branches of the upright stick ; let a long 
rope be at the end of the pole, and at the end of the rope a sled, 
with runners that cross each other at right angles, under a high 
box, filled with boys and girls, properly seated. Two stout fel- 
lows can easily turn the pole in the cavity of the Y, something in 
the way in which an oar is pulled in a regatta. Wait a moment, 
reader, I beseech you, and see the effect, when the impulse has 
crept to the rope's end. The sled starts like a comet behind 
time : it describes a far-off circle, widening and widening ; the 
passengers can scarcely see ; they breathe quickly but happily ; 
and I verily believe that (being conscious of safety, even were 
the ice as thin as a wafer,) any goodly company of young people 
thus engaged can enjoy a very satisfactory prologue to the sen- 
sations of an aeronaut on a trip, and feel as Virgil did when he 
begged Maecenas to rank him among the lyric poets : 

* Sublirai feriani sidera vertice.' 

Talking of poets and prologues, bids me discourse of the 
great merit of Shakspeare in these impressive productions. 
His prologues are seldom spoken ; stage people exclude them 
from the pubHc, and it is only now and then that they become 
closet familiars with the scholar. Shakspeare's prologues teem 
with meaning and description. Strong, brief, and simple, they 
are yet full of adventure and action. Take the following as an 
example. It is the opening of ' Troilus and Crcssida :' 

•In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece, 
The princes orgulous, their high-blood chafed, 
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships. 
Fraught with the ministers and instruments 



OLLAPODIANA. 181 

Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore 

Their crownets regal, from th' Athenian bay 

Put forth toward Phrygia ; and their vow is made ' 

To ransack Troy ; within whose strong immures 

The ravisht Helen, Menelaus' queen, 

With wanton Paris sleeps — and that's the quarrel. 

' To Tenedos they come ; 
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge 
Their warlike fraughtage : now, on Dardan plains, 
The fresh and yet unbruiesd Greeks do pitch 
Their brave pavilions : Priam's six-gated city, 
Dardan and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan, 
And Antenorides, with massy staples. 
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts, 
Skerrup the sons of Troy,' etc. 



Well, after all, life itself is but a dim prologue to that day 
of days, when the curtain of eternity will be lifted, and ' the 
swelling act' begin ! The thought is a deep one. Here, we are 
begirt with mystery. The Past rises with its shadows, only to 
the eye of Imagination : of the Wrong that has flourished and 
been successful, we know not yet the destiny ; of the Right that 
has suffered, in weariness and painfulness, we know not the re- 
ward. Who shall unravel the marvel, or dispel the illusion ? 
Of the events which happened, reader, when we were yet ' in the 
dark night of our fore-beings,' or ever the stars, or the moon 
walking in brightness, or the sun — glorious shadow and faint 
type of God! — had touched our mortal vision, who shall tell? 
The time gone is a dream ; the time to come, unknown. Tru- 
ly did one of yore say, as he discoursed of sepulchral mementoes, 
and turned his thoughts to the lofty structures of Egyptian ambi- 
tion : ' Time sadly overcometh all things, and is now dominant, 
and sitteth upon a sphynx, and looketh unto Memphis and old 
Thebes ; while his sister, Oblivion, reclineth semi-somnous on a 
pyramid, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and tunmig old 
glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. The 
traveller, as he paceth amazedly through those deserts, asketh of 
her who builded them, and she imimblcth something, but what it 
is, he heareth not.' Thus it is, that the position of our being de- 
fies all primary or ultimate inquiry. U we look back, there is a 
point where knowledge fades into conjecture ; if onward, we 
stand upon the border of a sea which has but one shore, and 
whose heavings beyond are infinite and eternal ! Of what avail 
is it, then, that we bend over the lore of antiquity, or wax pale 
over the lamp of midnight ; that we walk in the fields, catching 
the faint utterance of the voice of God ? We spend our strength 



182 OLLAPODIANA. 

for naught : the clouds roll with an uncomprehended impulse ; 
the wave heaves, the verdure brightens, the wind turneth in its 
circuits — but what are we? We drink the sunshine and the 
breeze ; passions warm us ; doubt overshadows, hope inspires, 
fear haunts us : but we are still in mystery. Pleasure and pain , 
are equally uncertain ; the morrow is in a mist, and yesterday is ^ 
nothing. Our friends die ; God changes their countenance and 
takes them away ; and where is the balm for so bitter a sting ? 
It is to consider the earth as no abiding place ; to rely on a power 
beyond our own ; to disdain the sneer of the bigot, the hot 
language of the zealot, and to cherish in one's heart of hearts 
that essence of the beatitudes — the religion of life. 

Let no vain hopes deceive the mind : 
No happier let us hope to find 

To-morrow than to-day : 
Our golden dreams of yore were bright- 
Like them the present shall dehght, 

Like them decay. 

Our lives like hastening streams must be, 
That into one engulfing sea 

Are doomed to fall : 
The sea of death — whose waves roll on, 
O'er king and kingdom, crown and throne, 

And swallow all ! 

Alike the river's lordly pride, 
Alike the humble rivulet's glide 

To that sad wave ; 
Death levels poverty and pride, 
A.nd rich and poor sleep side by side. 

Within the grave ! 

To this complexion at last must we come ; and our question- 
ings of the elements, or of the mind, are alike in vain. How 
often has passionate Grief invoked the hosts of heaven to restore 
the lost ! Yet when the clod has once fallen with its hollow 
sound upon the coffin lid ; when its melancholy echo has sunk 
unheard over the tuneless ear of Death, who that has stood by, 
and heard the requiem for the departed soul, but has wondered 
for its flight ? Where is the heart that has not poured forth its 
plaint, amid the stillness of the night, when the ear 

• From echoing hill or thicket, oft has seemed 
To hear celestial voices ?' 

It is then that the soul longs for the astrologer's power — the 
consultation of the stars. Among these orbs, gemming the night 
with lustre, where do the Departed dwell ? Who can pierce the 
blue mystery above, to tell ? There they shine from age to age ; 



OLLAPODIANA. 183 

glorious clusters, flooding the empyrean with paths of light, and 
looking down in beauty on the mutations of a ' wicked and per- 
verse world !' Is it among those floating jewels, scattered from 
the crown of the Almighty, where the prismatic light gleams from 
the gates of Paradise, that the wicked cease from troubling, and 
the weary are at rest? 

'Answer me, burning stars of night, 

Where hath the spirit gone, 
That past the reach of human sight 

Even as a breeze hath flown ? 
And the stars answer me : ' We roll 

In light and power en high, 
But of the never-dying soul, 

Ask that which cannot die !' 



By the way, I would not speak too reverently of astrology ; 
for I consider it a mythological humbug, which was exploded at 
Belshazzar's feast. When that distinguished personage was in 
the midst of his entertainment ; when the lamps shone brightly 
over fair women and brave men ; there came a passage of super- 
natural chirography over against him on the wall of his palace, 
which he could not decipher. Scratching his royal head, in 
grievous doubt, he called unto him his astrologers and soothsay- 
ers, (celestial proof-readers,) but ' they could not make known 
unto him the interpretation of the thing.' Ever since reading this 
sketch of that princely dinner, I have had a great distrust of your 
star-gazers. I am of this mind with Browne : ' We do not re- 
ject or condemn a sober and regulated astrology ; we hold there 
is more truth therein than in astrologers ; in some more than 
many allow, yet in none so much as some pretend. We deny 
not the influence of the stars, but often suspect the due applica- 
tion thereof; for though we should affirm that all things were in 
all things ; that heaven were but earth celestified, and earth but 
heaven terrestrified ; or that each part had an influence upon its 
divided affinity below, yet how to single out these relations, and 
duly to apply their actions, is a work oft-times to be effected by 
some revelation and cabala from above, rather than any philoso- 
phy or speculation here below. Wiiat power soever they have 
upon our bodies, it is not requisite they should destroy our rea- 
sons — that is, to make us rely on the strength of Nature, when 
she is least able to relieve us ; and when we conceive heaven 
against us, to refuse the assistance of the earth, created for us.' 



Talking of stars, leads me to astronomy, and thence to the 
calculations of the exact sciences, whereby that prescience of 



184 OLLAPODIANA. 

the future, which approaches divinity, and seems to snatch a pre- 
rogative from the Almighty, is revealed. The yrofanum vuIgiiSy 
even, have a dim but indefinable reverence for figurative lore. 
Thus Teddy O'Rourke, in the play, when he usurps the place 
of my learned friend, Doctor O'Toole, after the ^Salve Do7ni' 
mimP of Doctor Flail, and the puzzling reply of ^Scurnulum 
Tag'roogeea r goes on to bewilder himself in the mazes of ' cat- 
aphysics,' and the literature of ' the Thabans, the liussians, the 
Turks, and the rest of the Greeks,' and winds up with the knock- 
down conclusion, ' T/din's mathematics /' 



But that's neither here nor there. I wish to touch upon a 
subject familiar to every youth who has handled a pen while a 
student, and sat up till midnight to court the nine, when he should 
have been in bed by ten. I mean the producing of tributes for 
albums. Oh ! bore of bores ! How many despairing digits, at 
the command of young virgins, have ploughed themselves into 
the dandriif of the unpractised writer, in order to procure one or 
two ideas to dilute into an album ! No one can tell the amount 
of misery that is inflicted in this way upon the youthful portions 
of mankind. There is no release from a thraldom of this kind ; 
and if by dogged obstinacy you should happen to effect your re- 
demption thence, you are like the ' Prisoner released from the 
Bastile,' whereof all juveniles have read. No one will know you ; 
you will be cut by the lover of your bright-eyed cousin, and by 
herself. In fact, one might as well stipulate wantonly for a bad 
epitaph from a cutter of tomb-stones, as to attempt release from 
the scribblative obligation. There is no discharge in that war of 
the pen. For me, I can say with the apostle, that if all I had 
recorded in albums, from a desire to preserve my female friend- 
ships, and to do what is denominated ' the handsome thing,' ' I sup- 
pose the world could not contain the books that had been written.' 
Once, however, I was jnit to my trumps. A respectable mil- 
liner, who had made a beautiful bonnet for a cousin, desired her, 
as a special favor, to procure me to ' head the list' of contributors 
to her album. I received the volume. It was a blank-book, and 
the first two pages were devoted to memoranda of disposed-of 
millinett, dimity, ribbons, gros-de-naps, and so forth. The pages 
were ruled across in blue, and rectangularly, near the outer edge, 
in red, forming squares for the register of dollars and cents. A 
thought struck me, that I could make a novel hit in the ars po- 
etica, by bringing in figures to my aid. '■Figures,'' thought I, 
' are certainly allowable in poetry ; and though I cannot flatter 
the vanity of the fair owner of this quarto, (for she was very nice 



OLLAPODIANA. 



185 



and very pretty, except that one of her optics leered askew,) in 
my verse, perhaps I may do it in my motto.' For that I dilsw 
upon the Scriptures : and the sum total of the whole followeth : 

*T0 MISS LUCRE TI A SOPHONISBA MATILDA JERUSHA CATLING: 

Thou hast ravished my heart — thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine 
eyes ! Thy neck is like the tower of David, builded for an armory, whereon there 
hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. How beautiful are thy feet, 
trith shoes ! Thy neck is as a tower of ivory : thine eyes like the fish-pools in Heshbon, 
by the gate of Bath-Rabbin : thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon, which looketh to- 
ward Damascus. How fair and pleasant art thou, love, for dehghts ." 

IFrom the Canticles, or the Song of Songs, as originally written by Solomorif 
and sung by him at Jerusalem, vntli great applause.^ 



Thou canst not hope, oh ! nymph divine, 

That I should ever court the - _ - 

Or that when passion's glow is done, 

My heart can ever love but - - - - 

When from Hope's flowers exhales the dew, 

Then Love's false smile deserts us - - 

Then Fancy's radiance 'gins to flee, 

And life is robbed of all the - _ . 

And Sorrow, sad, her tears must pour 

O'er cheeks where roses bloomed be - 

Yes ! life's a scene all dim as Styx ; 

Its joys are dear at - . - - _ 

Its raptures fly so quickly hence, 

They 're scarcely cheap at - 

Oh ! for the dreams that then survive ! 

They 're high at pennies - - - - 

The breast no more is filled with heaven, 

When years it numbers , - - - 

And yields it up to Manhood's fate, 

About the age of - . . _ _ 

Finds the world cold, and dim, and dirty, 

Ere the heart's annual count is - 

Alas ! for all the joys that follow, 

I would not gwe di quarter-dollar ! 

This, charming artiste, is the sum 
To which life's added items come. 
If into farther sums I stride, 
I see the figures multiplied. 
Subtract the profit ones from those 
Whose all to loss untimely goes. 
And in the aggregate you find 
Enough to assure the thinking mind 
That there's an overplus of evil. 
Enough to fright the very d — 1 ! 

Thus, ray dear maid, I send to you 
The balance of my metre due ; 
Please scrutinize the above amount. 
And set it down in my account ; 
A wink to a horse is as good as a nod — 
Your humble servant, Ollapod. 



9 
1 
2 
3 
4—19 

3/6 
l%d 
25 
27 
28 
30 
25—1.97^ 



186 OLLAPODIANA. 

By the way, is it not wonderful, that though in relation to ce- 
lestial prospects, figures cannot lie, yet in terrestrial matters they 
are mendacious to the last degree ? It is even so. There are nu- 
merous improvements in our country, for example, which a few 
years ago would have been stigmatized as the dream of the min- 
strel, now apparent as the certainties of fact. Who, ten years 
since, would have thought of a sldp canal from the lakes to the 
ocean! — passing through fertile regions, bearing the white sail 
on its waters, the wealth of the interior, and the stores of Ormus 
or of Ind on its bosom ! Yet a few years, and the wilderness 
which once was barren, shall resound with the hum of commerce, 
be dimmed with the smoke of cities, and astonished with the bus- 
tle of mercantile life. We are not a stationary people : we go 
onward ; and if the best spirit that ever was filled of yore with 
high dreams of hope for the country, were now among us, what 
would be the scene of its vision ? Imagination furls her wing, 
and lets Reality take the lead. 

But I forbear. I am at my sheet's edge. Hereafter I will 
seize the theme, now but begun, 

and bear it with me, as the storm 

Ollapod. 



Bears the cloud onward.' 
Till then, gentle reader, I am wholly thine. 



NUMBER EIGHTEEN. 

AprU, 1837. 

Kind Reader : All eyes of late have been turned toward 
Washington. The last process of president-making has there 
been perfected, and the beauty of the republican system made 
manifest. The national metropolis, which is indeed, and pun- 
ning aside, a capital place, was crowded to abundant repletion. 
Men, it is said, in the annals of that week, slept wheresoever 
they could place their superabounding skulls ; some in rail-cars, 
some in the corners of suburban fences, and others, like the har- 
vests of old, were ' gathered into barns,' consorting with jealous 
rats, and provident mousers ; lashed by the scampering tails of 
the one, and visited by the omniscient whiskers of the other. 
In truth, from all we hear, it was a pressing time altogether, and 
the bed-market was never so tight before in the memory of the 



OLLAPODIANA. 187 

oldest inhabitant of Washington. But why should I enlarge upon 
this point — an imaginary one as far as 1 am concerned? ' 

'Of the people that suffered from evils that were, 
I can not tell — for I was not there.' 

But the pressure thitherward has awakened the remembrance 
of a visit to that region some dozens of moons ago. Washing- 
ton is ahvays sui generis, in its main features ; and turnpikes, 
sheets of water, with towns and cities, do not change materially 
in so short a time. 

Every one who has crossed the line of Mason and Dixon, 
knows what sort of a river the Delaware is. On one side, as 
thou goest toward the south, from the city of Penn, thou per- 
ceivest the low shore of Jersey, calm and green ; on the other, 
in the direction of the Occident, may be seen the undulating 
slopes and swells of Pennsylvania, melting into distance ; before 
thee is the crystal river, an affrighted member of the ichthyologi- 
cal tribe, frightened by the coming boat, springing now and then 
from its bosom — saltation by steam. 

Consider me on my way to the City of Distances. The dif- 
ference between the two shores and states is preserved, as far as 

you go. I pointed out to my friends, G. W. C and Le 

Compte C 1, the beauty of the scenes we were passing. 

The latter enjoyed them with that keen and relishing sense, 
natural in one but a few months in the country, ' and sharp with 
his eyes.' The tame canals of Europe, the trekschuyt, ahd the 
sleepy landscapes from its portals of observation, were contrasted 
with the free and majestic movement of our good steamer, and 
the scenes from its airy deck, or its cabin windows. 



We are on the Chesapeake. It is early autumn. A few frosts 
have descended upon the woodlands, whose painted masses hang 
over the edge of the distant wave, like an ocean of rainbows, 
just breaking in turbulence upon a lake of pure and molten sil- 
ver. Golden flashes of sunshine play in tremulous lines for 
miles along the wave ; the distant sail flits into indistinctness, and 
the duck, poising its wing on the western gale, skims the blue 
ridges in the south-east like the messenger of a spirit, dropping 
ever and anon to float on its nest on the billow, and turn its quick 
iris to the smoky craft, gliding like a ' sea chimera' on the distant 
waste. 

The approach to Baltimore was likest to magic. A long pile 
of rosy clouds, whether the incense of the city, or the offspring 



188 OLLAPODIANA. 

of the bay, clung to the base of the town, steeped in the gushes 
of the sunset, and extending for miles on either hand. Above 
these clouds rose the domes of cathedrals, churches, and min- 
sters ! and over all, the slender but simple and majestic shaft, at 
which whosoever looketh, he shall be instantly reminded of the 
Father of his Country, the immortal Washington. It springs 
toward the heavens with a plain but a commanding austerity. 
There, around the crowning statue, breathes the air of freedom ; 
there circulates the sunlight which gilds the pinion of the eagle, 
or lights the plumage of the dove, as she sails to her rest. 



The City of Monuments is worth a week of observation. 
When thou touchest that spot, oh, Tourist ! rest thee there 
awhile. Go forth into the town. Remain not too long at morn 
over Barnum's rich coffee and cakes, nor at noon over his wines, 
those succulent, magical things, but get thee out into the thorough- 
fares. Convey yourself to the Holiday-street Temple ; and if 
the gas he dubiously fragrant, thou wilt get respectable dramatics, 
and thine evening shall be well nigh spent ere it seem begun. 



Baltimore, like Boston, is a city of ups and downs. It is 
memorable to me ; for it was in that city of monuments that I 
had well nigh lost my life. That spice of the adventurous which 
has accompanied me from my earliest days, led me to ascend the 
long ladder, said to have been some seventy feet high, placed on 
the outside of the great dome of the cathedral, then undergoing 
repairs. The upward distance lent an enchantment to my eye, 
which was irresistible. I fancied that the view from the ' topmost 
round' of those tapering ladders, tied together with ropes, would 
be magnificent. I was not disappointed. The bay melted afar 
into the iris-blue of air ; that golden edging, which hangs over 
forest tops and waters in summer, whose tremulousness makes 
the eye ache with gazing, and fills the heart with happy and ethe- 
real feelings. Landward, the country spread brightly around, 
seamed with brown roads, and fading afar into apparent ridges, 
and swells of cedar-green. It was a calm and cheerful day, and 
every object in unison one with another. The air was rarefied 
and sweet ; the last odor of the latest flowers of summer seemed 
floating by in the sunshine ■• and I fancied that the voices of sum- 
mer-birds, taking their farewells for distant climes, were mingling 
with them. The shipping in the harbor sent every pennon to the 
gale ; the flag-stafis waved their signals, and, what with the fresh 
breeze, and the beauty of the morning, it really seemed a gala- 
day. 



OLLAPODIANA. 189 

After havinc; fed my eyes with the beauty of the scene, from 
the extreme height of the ladder, the voices of the workmen in 
the cupola, or on the balustrade above, making a pleasant hum 
in my ear, I prepared to descend. But the moment I looked to- 
ward the earth, a dizziness came upon me, which almost led me 
to instantaneous self-abandonment. My brain reeled, my eyes 
grew dim ; a sleepy sensation crept over me ; the whole cathe- 
dral seemed to recede from my gaze ; and for a moment I seem- 
ed as if sailing in the air. I had not descended more than a 
dozen rounds, when my tottering steps and trembling hands 
really seemed to refuse their office. My sickness increased, and 
a languor crept over my perceptions, like the effect of an ano- 
dyne. I felt myself absolutely becoming indifferent to my peril, 
though I knew it well. I was in truth as if in a dream; and I 
can safely aver, that I felt myself losing all consciousness, when 
I heard one of the laborers above — and the words came to my 
ear as if from the supernatural lips of a spirit — ^ My God! that 
young gentleman is going to fall /' 

This sentence went like fire to my brain, and rolled like a flood 
of lava over every nerve. It restored me instantly to a full per- 
ception of my case, and my course. I grasped the rounds of 
the ladder with the firmness which a drowning man exhibits 
when clutching, in the bubbling groan of his last agony, at the 
slenderest spar. Every foot-fall shook the ladder from end to 
end ; and when I touched the ground, I felt precisely as if res- 
cued from the grave. 



From Baltimore to Washington, the route is what one might 
call dull. Such, at least, was the impression of the road upon 
our party of three and a servant, as we wheeled over the yellow 
line, y'clept a turnpike. The view therefrom is limited, being 
confined to a few brown landscapes, describing, as it were, a 
stone's-throw-radius on either hand. One stirring scene, how- 
ever, I must needs except. There is a point, as you go from 
.Baltimore, Washington-ward, where the former city lifts itself in 
supreme beauty along the line of the horizon. Dome, tower, 
and temple, point their glowing indices toward that heaven to 
which their ministering spirits guide the way ; a wide lapse of 
silver bounds the view ; and over all, like a pyramid above the 
plains of INIemphis or of Thebes, or like to the Needles, named 
of her who wooed an Anthony to her bosom, and who fed 
from those fair orbs the scorpion which killed her ; rose that thin 
shaft which commemorates the fame of Washington, the Sa- 
viour of his Country, As I turned my head, (thrust forth in 



190 OLLAPODIANA. 

search of the picturesque, from the window of our coach), to 
survey the parting glories of that tall white column, my heart 
swelled into my throat ; for, my dear American reader, I am 
peculiarly susceptible of patriotic influences. A sign-post, with 
Washington at its top, calls forth my admiration. I have wept 
at the plaudits of an audience at the theatre, when the falhng of 
a new drop-curtain has disclosed the form or features of the 
Pater Patrice. Simple, republican, austere in honor, sublime in 
war, beloved in peace ; when shall we look upon his like again ? 
I am not of those who fancy that any eulogy can be misused 
upon his memory; nor do I think that terms and tributes, though 
often repeated, can ever grow famihar or aged, when applied to 
his name. Therefore I offer, as the best synopsis of his merits, 
a stanza which may be familiar to many, and yet new to the 
majority of those who now follow my words : 

'His was Octavian's prosperous star — 
The rush of Caesar's conquering car, 

At Battle's call ; 
His Scipio's virtue; his the skill 
And the indomitable will 

Of Hannibal : 
His was Aurelius' soul divine, 
The clemency of Antonine, 

And generous will : 
In tented field and bloody fray, 
An Alexander's vigorous sway, 

And stern command : 
The faith of Constantine — ay, more — 
The fevent love Camillus bore 

His native land.' 

The sun had gone to bed in a pile of fleecy and feathery 
clouds, flushed like the heart of a summer rose, long before we 
had reached the Great Capital. A storm came on ; the rain 
pattered heavily against our carriage-window ; and when we first 
caught the reflection of lights against them from the lamps in the 
vicinity of the capitol, it seemed as if we had embarked in a 
vehicle, chartered by Phaeton, to be conveyed whithersoever his 
eccentric whipship would. 



A PRESENTATION at the American court, at a private au- 
dience, and with a foreign functionary, is not an ordinary matter 
of your working-day world. With anticipations of this sort, so 
it was that I was awakened by our attendant in a crowded sky- 
parlor at Gadsby's through whose uppermost casement I looked 
and saw the splendors of an autunmal morning sun streaming 
over the capital, at the distant end of Pennsylvania Avenue. 



OLLAPODIANA. 191 

But what a strange melange of town and country between ! 
Fields near at hand ; rural waters twinkling nigh ; and at long 
intervals, the indications of a city. One finds no direct chance 
of deciding upon his whereabout. At first, he fancies it may be 
rus in urhe; at the next moment, he concludes himself surrounded 
cum urbs in rure. Thenceforth, those abstruse mysteries, the 
points of a compass ; properly belonging to the shipman's card, 
and not manipulated by lubbers o' the land; become to himin- 
exphcable enigmas. He knows the contradistinction of heads 
and heels, barely ; all facts beyond outventure his philosophy. 



There is a halo of ' glorification,' after all, about a function- 
ary, high in office and place, which makes the heart of your 
humble denizen beat quicker, as he approaches the imperial den. 
Thus it was with me, as our coach wheeled up to the mansion 
where le Compte was to find himself accredited. The ceremo- 
nies on such occasions are pleasant to the spectator, and though 
simple, are imposing. A group of gray-heads and time-worn 
forms ; expressions of polite regards, in different accents and va- 
rious language ; bows and kind assurances, are the staple scenes 
and sounds on such occasions. 

At the same time, it is right republican to see the President, 
with a free-and-easy air, ask his Secretary of State to light a 
paper that he may convey the blaze thereof to a pipe, the stem 
of which would not measure in length more than three inches, 
and the smoke from the bowl thereof would coil up within a 
hair's breadth of the presidential nose. It reminds one of those 
calm and luxurious times, signalized in the reign of Wouter 
Van Twiller, in the days when the Knickerbockers, pyra- 
mids of their day and generation, towered aloft in Dutch and dar- 
ing dignity. 

Among the fair women of that day and hour, was the gifted 

and accomplished **** L . Song, it was said, had breathed 

around her footsteps from lyres of fame ; and one devoted bard, 
(so Rumor breathes) poured after her when abroad, the song that 
ensueth. He had heard, erroneously, that she was dead : 

'TO CORA. 
I. 

' I SANG to thee my tnatin hymn 
In life's auspicious hour, 
Ere the sunhght of joy grew dim, 
O'er beauty's vernal bower ; 



192 OLLAPODIANA. 

For all the wealth of heaven above, 

And all beneath the sea, 
I would not then have sold the love 

Thou freely gav'st to me. 
II. 

♦ When youth's bright hopes began to fail, 

I sung an altered strain — 
The farewell to the fading sail 

That bore thee o'er the main ; 
And as I pressed thy gentle form, 

And heard thy parting vow, 
Thy kisses on my lips were warm, 

Thy tears were on my brow ! 
III. 

♦ Still fall those tears ? Sweet mourner, uo ! 

Beyond the unquiet wave. 
Thy broken heart forgot its wo. 

But only in the grave I 
There Memory weeps — while trusting Love 

Looks through the clouds of even, 
To view thine angel form above, 

A habitant of heaven!' 

Nothing can well be prettier, or more pathetic, than this effu- 
sion ; yet the catastrophe part, as my friend of the Albany Argus 
would say, was ' gratuitous.' The parties afterward, mayhap, 
read it together, and pointed out the chronological inaccuracies ; 
which reminds me, or might remind me, of a circumstance lately 
related in one of the western papers, where a gentleman who had 
been advertised as deceased, wrote a polite note to the editor of 
the journal, (who had thus among his iicrsonal ship-news re- 
corded a false clearance for eternity), somewhat as follows : 

'My Dkar Sir : Will you allow me to correct a slight statement in your 
last, with reference to my death ? I am gratetul for the compliments to my 
character in your obituary notice, and I believe them deserved. That I 
tried to do the handsome thing while I lived, is most true ; true, too, is it, that 
I never backed out of a fight, and never saw the man that could whip me, 
when alive; and I say the same yet, ' being dead,' according to your story. 
But when you state, that I left my affairs unsettled, and my widow and 
tliose eleven children unprovided for, I have only to state, that you lie in 
your throat ! I mean no offence in what 1 say ; I speak in the aggregate 
sense of the term. Being a dead man, and printed down, as such in your 
columns, I am incapable of mortal resentments ; but I leave as my avengers, 
Cain, Abel, and Simpkins, printers and publishers of the Occidental 
Trumpet and Mississippi Battle-Axe. To the editor of that paper, I submit 
my fame. To his indomitable coolness, never yet rutHed by repeated con- 
tumely, and invulnerable to contempt, I confide my reputation : fueling 
certain that one who has never found satisfaction for an insult, (nor sought 
it indeed,) can fail to be a champion in my cause. That he may be in peril 
in my advocacy, is possible ; but he knows how to shun it. He is inde- 
pendent, for he is unknown ; he is fearless, for no man will touch a hair of 
his head. To that important Gulliver, in whatsoever cave or fastness he 
may dwell, I surrender my fame. Yours, 'till death, 

RoswELL Adams Greene.' 



OLLAPODIANA. 193 

But I wander, and I recall my rambling spirit back to the 
American capital. 

Attended church. 'Tis a dull business in Washington. 
One's devotional feelings, that in ordinary cities kindle and rise 
heavenward, at the anthems of the choir, or the pealing of the 
organ, come down, in the metropolis of the republic, to the shal- 
low and factitious distinctions of this common sphere of earth. 
The preachers at Washington have been variously described. 
Just before the session of the National Legislature, as at the 
period of which I speak, crowds of the reverend cloth convene, 
for the chaplaincy of Congress, and other purposes. Of course, 
as many of these as can, accomplish the entre to the metropoli- 
tan desk, to display their powers. The divine I had the happi- 
ness to hear, in some respects resembled the man whom my dear 
lamented Sands described in his ' Scenes at Washington.' 
Argument was his hobby ; and he would curtail a sentence of 
its dimensions, and subv^ert all gleanings, scriptural, historical, or 
political, to fortify the same. He reminded me of that queer and 
rural divine, of whom I have heard in Massachusetts, who found 
his congregation indulging in all the extravagances of provincial 
fashion, and rebuked them en masse, (especially the fairer part, 
who indulged in flaunting top-knots, and dresses of the head), 
by choosing for one of his sermons the following text : ' Top- 
Tcnot come doiviiP From this text he deduced a world of sacred 
ratiocination. He expatiated upon the uselessness of top-knots, 
and enlarged upon his scriptural injunction that they should come 
down. Toward the close of his sermon, he confessed that he 
had merely adopted a clause; but he said that any detached 
sentence, even, from Holy Writ, was profitable for reproof and 
mstruction. ' The context of the clause,' he added, 'I will now 
join with the text. It is thus written ; 'Let him that is on the 
house-^op not come doion.'' Comment is unnecessary ! 



There is a story of this same man of God, now gathered to 
his fathers, (or named at least of him,) for which I have great re- 
spect. It seems that he encountered a confirmed infidel one even- 
ing at a donation-party ; a man who respected the pastor of the 
town, though he did not credit his doctrines. By accident, they 
engaged in a controversy, and the infidel endeavored to prove, by 
Holy Writ, in the same text-choosing method for which his op- 
nent was proverbial, that the priests of old were drunkards, and 
that they imbibed ' potations pottle deep,' in public. 

' How do you prove that ? Give me an instance,' said the 
clerical gladiator. 13 



194 OLLAPODIANA. 

* Well,' was the reply, ' look at the coronation of Solomo:?^, 
where it is expressly stated that Zadok, the priest who anointed 
him, ' took a horn.'' ' 

' Yes,' said he of the cloth, ' but you do n't give the whole 
passage, which is this : ' And Zadok the priest took a horn of 
oil, and anointed Solonnon,' ' 

* I did not say what he did with his horn,' rejoined the infidel; 
* I only contended that he took it.' 

' Good, very good !' responded the divine, warming at the quiz 
which he saw was directed towards himself : ' you are ingenious 
in your argument ; but I can prove by the Scriptures, in the 
same way, that instead of being here, resolving doubts and dis- 
puting with me, you should be swinging on a gallows at this mo- 
ment, by your own consent and deed.' 

' No, no ; that^s beyond your skill ; and if you will establish 
what you propose, by any kind of ratiocination, I will confess my 
deserts, as soon as they are shown.' 

' Agreed. Now do we not read in the Bible, that * Judas went 
and hanged himself?' ' 

* Yes, we do.' 

* Do you not find in another part of the Sacred Word, ' Go 
thou and do likewise ?' ' 

' Yes ; you have proved that as far as you go. What next ?' 

* Only one clause more,' replied the divine. The Bible also 
says, ' What thou doest, do quickly.'' Now, my friend, go and 
hang yourself at once !' 

' Not till I show you the text to your charity sermon, preached 
for the Widow's Society in Boston, last spring. Here it is ; 
and there is a word there, which you either have not properly 
Written or properly read.' 

Saying this, he drew a pamphlet from his pocket, and pointed 
to the opening passage. It ran thus : ' Then he rebuked the 
winds, and the sea, and lo ! there was a great clam P ' Why do 
bring your texts to such an amphibious and testaceous termina- 
tion ?' 

The good man was thunderstruck. He acknowledged that 
there was an error ; but he contended that shell-fish might have 
existed at that ancient period : 

' E'en though vanquished, he could argue still.' 



Unfortunately, typical mutations in published mss. have 
come down to the present day. Not many moons since, I was 
called upon by a small and humble-looking person, in green spec- 



OLLAPODIANA. 195 

tacles, behind which there rolled two enormous gray eyes. He 
said he was a man of many occupations, and sometimes dabbled 
in literature. He had thoughts of buying some western lands, 
if any one would credit him for six years, and in that way make 
his fortune. A friend in Texas had also assured him that he 
could get some lots there on the same terms. In these enterpri- 
ses he wished me to join him. But first, and before showing 
me some poetry which had been spoilt in the publication, he 
wished me to loan him a shilling, and accept his note to that 
amount, ' with sixty days to run.' A humorous thought struck 
me, and I chose the latter, with the direction that he should try 
it for discount at the United States' Bank. The next day I re- 
ceived a carefully-written ' business letter' from him, which (after 
promising to call on me in an hour after I received it) contained 
the ensuing : 

' December 17. 

'Mr Dear Sir : I have had an interview with Mr. Biddle, and truly la- 
ment my inability to communicate satisfactory results. I fear that until the 
resolution of the Senator from Ohio, in regard to the repeal of the Treasury 
order, is finally disposed of, the trading interests will materially suffer. 

' The Board of Directors, however, have some reason to indulge in the 
pleasing hope, that a small keg of ten-cent-pieces will arrive from Tinnicum, 
some time during the ensuing week ; in which case, the president has prom- 
ised to exert his influence in my behalf on the next discount-day. 

' If we should be successful in ultimately elevating the breeze (raising the 
wind) on my promissory note, we can proceed without delay to our contem- 
plated acquisitions in Michihmackinac lands, and Texas scrip. 

' ^our obedient friend, Zebedee Fosst.' 

He was with me, almost before I had read his letter. ' Ah !' 
said he, ' reading my scroll, I see. Funny circumstance. But 
never mind. You make pieces sometimes for the Knicker- 
bocker, don't you? — apt kind o' pieces, that come out of your 
head ? I borrow that there periodical, sometimes, of a friend, 
and I seen a piece-t there about a man who was the ' Victim of 
a Proof-reader.' I am one of that class. Two years ago I was in 
love. I was jilted. Hang details ; the upshot is the main thing. 
Well, I had tried the young lady, and found her wanting ; and I 
thought I would quote a line of Scripture onto her, as a motto 
for some bitter and reproachful verses.' So, holding a manu- 
script in one hand high up, and placing the other arm a-kimbo, 
he read as follows : 

•TO ONE FOUND WANTING. 

' Mene, mene, tekel upharsin ." — Scriptoee. 

' Thou art no more, what once I knew 
Thy heart and guileless tongue to be ; 



196 OLLAPODIANA. 

Thou art no longer pure and true, 

Nor fond, to one who knelt to thee ; 
Who knelt, and deemed thee all his own, 

Nor knew a dearer wish beside ; 
Who made his trembling passion known, 

And looked to own thee for a bride. 

• What is the vow that once I heard 

From those balm-breatliing lips of thine ? 
Broken, ah ! broken, word by word. 

E'en while I worshipped at thy shrine ! 
Broken by thee, to whom I bowed. 

As bends the wind-flower to the breeze, 
As bent the Chaldean, through the cloud, 

To Orion and the Pleiades. 

'But thou art lost ! and I no more 

Must drink thy xindeceiving glance ; 
Our thousand fondling spells are o'er — 

Our raptured moments in the dance. 
Vanished, like dew-drops from the spray 

Are moments which in beauty flew ; 
I cast life's brightest pearl away, 

And, false one, breathe my last adieu !' 

Here he stopped, his gray eyes rolling in a wild frenzy, and 
drew a newspaper from his breeches pocket. * Sir,' said he, 
striking an attitude, ' I sent them verses for to be printed into the 
' Literary Steam-boat and General Wester?i Alligator.^ It is a 
paper. Sir, with immense circulation. A column in it, to be read 
by the boatmen and raftsmen of the west, is immortality. I say 
nothing. Just see how my effusion w^as butchered. I can 't 
read it.' 

I took the paper, a little yellow six-by-eight folio, and read 
thus : 

♦TO ORE, FOUND WASHING. 

'Mere, mere, treacle, O'Sartin ." — Sculpture. 

* Thou hast no means, at once to slew 

Thy beasts, and girdless tongues to tree ; 
Thou hast no I'argent, pure and true. 

Nor feed, for one who knelt to thee : 
Who knelt, and dreemed thy all his own, 

Nor knew a drearer wish betidle. 
Who maid his tumbling parsnips known, 

And looked to arm thee for a bridle ! 

• What is the row ? what once I heard 

From those brow-beating limps of thine ? 
Brokers ! oh, brokers ! one by one. 
E'en while I worshipped at thy shine ! 



OLLAPODIANA. 197 

Broker by three! to whom I lowed, 

As lends the wind-flaw to the tries ! 
As burst the chaldron thro' the clod, 

To Onions, and the fleas as dies ! 

•But thou art lost! and I no more 

Mus dirk thy undeceaving glance ; 
One thous & friendly squills are o'er. 

Our ruptured moments in the dance ! 
Varnished, like dew-drops from the sprag, 

Are moments which in business flew ! 
I cut life's brightest peal a-wag. 

And, false one, break my bust — a dieu !' 

On breaking into a loud laugh at the utter stupidity of this 
typical metamorphosis, I found that the stranger grew red in the 
face. He snatched the paper from my hand, and disappeared, 
making his bow as he retired. 

And, beloved reader, having exceeded my boundaries, let me 
do the same. Thine till doomsday, Ollapod. 



NUMBER NINETE-EN. 

August, 1837. 

Whether you be gentle or simple, reader, whether poetical 
or prose enamored, you have been free from any inflictions or 
productions of mine, whichsoever you may please to call them, 
any time these several months. If the omission has been griev- 
vous, you may have had a monition that your life is not all sun- 
shine, many things being oft anticipated, which come not to hand 
of him that desireth them ; if pleasing, you are now reminded, 
that pleasures of a sublunary character are too brief to have long 
uniform continuance, since ' diuturnity of delight is a dream, and 
folly of expectation.' So much for prefatory philosophy. Pla- 
to, when he paced along the olive walks, beneath the groves of 
Academe, or listened to the prattle of shining Grecian streams 
of yore, never knew what it was to meditate the exordium of a 
magazine paper. As yet, when he flourished, ' editors and agents 
of periodicals' never took prominent parts in university proces- 
sions, with toll-gate keepers, sea-serpents and American eagles, 
as was jocosely related of the late conflagratory assemblage in the 
edifice of Brown, on Providence Plantations. 

By the way, I laughed extremely at the piece to which I al- 
lude, which was full of delightsome and most facetious things, 
right aptly conceited. It was an imaginary procession at Brown 



198 OLLAPODIANA. 

University, on occasion of burning all the literary productions of 
the students for the last five or six years. Had the sacrificial 
mandate extended to the honorary members of her societies, then 
would Ollapod have been obliged to be present with his offer- 
ing to the insatiate elements ; and with ' survivors of the Boston 
massacre, in coaches,' or ' superannuated toll-keepers of the 
Pawtucket Turnpike,' followed in the train of the great marine 
visitor at Nahant, or that supposed bird, met by the dreamer (im- 
mortalized by the muse of Sands) who sailed a-nigh it in his 
vision, what time his spectral charger waved to the breeze of 
midnight 

' the long, long tail, that glorified 

That glorious animal's hinder side !' 



I'll warrant me a dozen of Burgundy, with all olives and ap- 
purtenances thereunto properly belonging, that this same humor- 
ous description gave offence to those who support the dignity of 
a time-honored alma-mater. But they must have laughed in 
their sleeves at the witty conception of it. Yet it is an old say- 
ing, ' A blow with a word strikes deeper than one with a sword.' 
' Many men,' saith the profound old Democritus, Junior, ' are as 
much gauled with a jest, a pasquil, satyre, epigram, or the like, 
as with any misfortune whatever. Princes and potentates, that 
are otherwise happy, and have all at command, secure and free, 
are grievously vexed with these pasquilling satyrs : they fear a 
railing Aretine, more than an enemy in the field ; which made 
most princes of his time, as some relate, allow him a liberal pen- 
sion, that he should not tax them in his satyrs. The gods had 
their Momus, Homer his Zoilus, Achilles his Thersites, Philip 
his Demades ; the Cassars themselves in Rome were commonly 
taunted. There was never wanting a Petronius, a Lucian, in 
those times ; nor will be a Rabelais, an Euphormio, a Boccalinus, 
in ours. Adrian the Sixth, pope, was so highly offended and 
grievously vexed with pasquils at Rome, he gave command that 
satyre should be demolished and burned, the ashes flung into the 
river Tiber, and had it done forthwith, had not Ludovicus,,a 
facete companion, dissuaded him to the contrary, by telling him 
that pasquils would turn to frogs in the bottom of the river, and 
croak worse and louder than before.' A right pithy description 
is tills, of the effect of wit and words. 

I HAVE sometimes guffawed immeasurably, at the sharp cuts 
and thrusts not seldom indulged by the current writers of our 
country, both in periodicals and newspapers. Not that I par- 



OLLAPODIANA. 199 

ticularly affect the vapid abortions which appear in each depart- 
ment, as now and then they must inevitably do ; but names and 
sources might readily be mentioned in both, whereat the general 
lip shall curl you a smile, as if by intuition. Our magazines have 
a goodly sprinkling of the cheerful ; and in dull times, one can 
but wish that they even had more. There is a spirit, and I men- 
tioned but now the name of its incarnate habitation, which has 
gone from among us, no more to return. Ah me ! — that spirit! 
It was stored with sublunary lore ; calm, philosophical, observant; 
a lens, through which the colors of a warm heart, full of genuine 
philanthropy and goodness, shone forth upon the world. It was 
sportive in its satire, and its very sadness was cheerful. Grasp- 
ing and depicting the Great, it yet ennobled and beautified the 
Small. Its messengers of thought, winged and clothed with 
beautiful plumage, went forth in the world, to please by their 
changeableness, or to impress the eye of fancy with their endu- 
ring loveliness. Such was the spirit of Sands, whose light was 
quenched for ever, while ' inditing a good matter' for the very 
pages which now embody this feeble tribute to his genius.* I 
well remember, when I first approached his native city, after his 
death, how thick-coming were the associations connected with his 
memory, which brought the tears into my eyes. The distant 
shades of Hoboken, where he so loved to wander ; the spreading 
bay, whereon his ' rapt, inspired' eye had so often rested ; the 
city, towering sleepily afar ; the fairy hues of coming twilight, 
trembling over the glassy Hudson, sloop-bestrown ; the half-sil- 
ver, half-emerald shades, blending together under the heights of 
Weehawken — these, appealing to my eye, recalled the Lost to 
my side. I looked to the shore, and there 

• The shadows of departed hours 
Hung dim upon the early flowers ; 
Even in their sunshine seemed to brood 
Something more deep than soUtude.' 



No BARD, ' holy and true,' was ever more deeply imbued than 
Sands with ' the spirit of song.' Sublimity, tenderness, descrip- 
tion, all were his. But in his dissertations on all subjects, his 
struggling humor at last came uppermost. From classic stores, 
he could educe the novel jeu cf esprit; from fanciful premises, 
the most amusing conclusions. Having given a pleasant line or 
two from one of his happiest sketches, I feel irresistibly inclined 
to encompass the whole. It is necessary beforehand, to discern 

* Robert C. Sands ; who, while engaged in writing an article for the Knickerbocker 
Magazine, was struck with paralysis, and almost immediately expired. Editor. 



200 OLLAPODIANA. 

the preamble of the argument. A fellow-minstrel has indited and 
published to the world a fanciful picture of the national eagle, in 
all its original wildness, surrounded with characteristic scenery. 
The subject is a grand one, but over-colored ; and would seem 
to have been drawn according to the admitted principle of the 
writer in composition, that ' whatever he writes is either superla- 
tively good, or sheer nonsense.' The former quality sometimes 
predominates ; but there is enough of the latter in all he has 
written. The minstrel just mentioned also gave birth to a mid- 
night phantom, or the sketch of a most supernal steed ; the bur- 
lesque presentment whereof is hereto annexed, together with cer- 
tain allusions to the feathery emblem of the republic, which show 
that the limner knew how to kill two rare objects with one satiri- 
cal ' fragment of granite :' 

'A MISTY dream — and a flashy maze — 
Of a sunshiny flush — and a moonshiny haze ! 
I lay asleep with my eyes open wide, 
When a donkey came to my bedside, 
And bade me forth to take a ride. 
It was not a donkey of vulgar breed, 
But a cloudy vision — a night-mare steed ! 
His ears were abroad like a warrior's plume — 
From the bosom of darkness was borrowed the gloom 
Of his dark, dark hide, and his coal black hair, 
But his eyes like no earthly eyes they were ! 
Like the fields of heaven where none can see 
The depths of their blue eternity ! 
Like the crest of a helmet taught proudly to nod, 
And wave like a meteor's train abroad, 
Was the long, long tail that glorified 
That glorious donkey's hinder side! 
And his gait description's power surpasses^ 
'T was the beau ideal of all jack-asses. 

* I strode o'er his back, and he took in his wind — 
And he pranced before and he kicked behind — 
And he gave a snort, as when mutterings roll 
Abroad from pole to answering pole — 
While the storm-king sits on the hail-cloud's back. 
And amuses himself with the thunder-crack ! 
Then oft' he went, like a bird with red wings. 
That builds her nest where the clifT-flower springs — 
Like a cloudy steed by the light of the moon. 
When the night's muffled horn plays a windy tune ; 
And away I went, while my garment flew 
Forth on the night breeze, with a snow-shiny hue — 
Like a streak of white foam on a sea of blue. 
Up-bristled then the night-charger's hair too. 
Like a bayonet grove, at a » shoulder-hoo !' 

' Hurrah ! hurrah ! what a hurry we made ! 
My hairs rose too, but I was not afraid ; 



OLLAPODIANA. 201 

Like a stand of pikes they stood up all, 

Each eye stood out like a cannon-ball ; , 

So wrapt I looked, like the god of song, 

As I-shot and whizzed like a rocket along. 

Thus through the trough of the air as we dash'd, 

Goodly and glorious visions flaslrd 

Before my sight with a flashing and sparkling. 

In whose blaze all earthly gems are darkling. 

As the gushes of morning, the trappings of eve, 

Or the myriad lights that will dance when you give 

Yourself a clout on the orb of sight. 

And see long ribands of rainbow light : 

Such were the splendors and so divine, 

So rosy and starry, and fiery and fine. 

' Then eagle ! then stars I and then rainbows ! and all 
That I saw at Niagara's tumbling fall. 
Where I sung so divinely of them and their glories, 
While mewed*in vile durance, and kept by the tories ; 
Where the red cross flag was abroad on the blast, 
I sat very mournful, but not downcast. 
My harp on the willows I did not hang up. 
Nor the winglets of fancy were suffered to droop, — 
But I soared, and I swooped, like a bird with red wings 
Who mounts to the cloud-god, and soaringly sings. 

• But the phantom steed in his whirlwind course. 
Galloped along like Beelzebub's horse, 

Till we came to a bank, dark, craggy, and wild, 

Where no rock-flowers blushed, no verdure smiled — 

But sparse from the thunder-cliffs bleak and bare. 

Like the plumage of ravens that warrior helms wear. 

And below very far was a gulf profound. 

Where tumbling and rumbling, at distance resound 

Billowy clouds — o'er whose bottomless bed 

The curtain of night its volumes spread — 

But a rushing of fire was revealing the gloom, 

Where convulsions had birth, and the thunders a home. 

' You may put out the eyes of the sun at raid-day — 
You may hold a young cherubim fast by the tail — 
You may steal from night's angel his blanket away — 
Or the song of the bard at its flood-tide may stay. 

But that cloud phantom donkey to stop you would fail ! 

'He plunged in the gulf — 't was a great way to go. 
Ere we lit mid the darkness and flashings below ; 
And I looked — as I hung o'er that sulphurous light — 
Like a warrior of flame ! — on a courser of night I 
But what I beheld in that dark ocean's roar, 
I have partly described in a poem before, 
And the rest I resei-ve for a measure more strong, 
When my heart shall be heaving and bursting with song ! 

• But I saw, as he sailed 'mid the dusky air, 
A bird that I thought I knew everywhere, 



202 OLLAPODIANA. 

A fierce gray bird with a terrible beak, 

With a glittering eye, and peculiar shriek : 

' Proud Bird of the Cliff!' I addressed him then — 

' How my heart swells high thus to meet thee again ! 

Thou whose bare bosom for rest is laid 

On pillows of night by the thunder-cloud made! 

With a rushing of wings and a screaming of praise, 

Who in ecstacy soar'st in the red-hot blaze ! 

Who dancest in heaven to the sound of the trump. 

To the fife's acclaim, and bass-drum's thump I 

Whence com'st thou,' I cried, ' and goest whither V 

As I gently detained him by his tail-feather. 

He replied, ' Mr. Neal ! Mr. Neal ! let me loose ! 

I am not an eagle, but only a goose ! 

Your optics are weak, and the weather is hazy^ 

And excuse the remark, but I think you are crazy.' * 

Sands was a lover of nature, with an affection ' passing the 
love of women ;' and he entered into the very heart of her mys- 
teries. Lately, I made a pilgrimage to a scene which he has de- 
painted, in one of those quiet, rich, and noble sketches, which 
have gained such celebrity to his pen. It was the Kaatskills. 



It fell on a day, when the guns and thunder of artillery pro- 
claimed, according to the Fourth-of-July orators, ' the Birth-day 
of Freedom,' that we made our way from the crowded city to the 
majestic craft that was to convey us up the Hudson. What a 
contrast did the embarkation scene present to the tranquil Dela- 
ware, and the calm, sweet city of fraternal affection ! Thousands 
of garish pennons were abroad on the gale ; the winds, as they 
surged along on their viewless wings, were heavy with the sound 
of cannon, the rolling of chariot-wheels, and the shouts of multi- 
tudes. To me, it is an edifying and a thought-inspiring sight, to 
look from the promenade-deck of a receding steamer upon a city, 
as it glides into distance. The airy heights, dwelling-crowned, 
around ; the craft going to and fro ; the thousand destinations of 
the throngs that fill them : the hopes and fears that impel them. 
Some are on errands of business ; some, on those of pleasure : 

' For every man hath business, and desire, 
Such as it is,' 

Yonder a gay ship, her sails filled with air and sunshine, hastens 
through the Narrows. She is a packet, outward bound. We 
see her as she goes. Within her are hearts sighing to leave their 
native land ; from tearful eyes there extends the level of the tele- 
scope which brings the distant near ; and at some upper casement 
in the town, a trembling hand waves the white 'kerchief, still de- 
scried ; at last it trembles into a glimmer ; the ocean haze rises 



OLLAPODIANA. 203 

between, and the bosom which it cheered goes below to heave 
with the nausea marina, and feel the benefits of an attentive 
steward. 

It is beautiful to ascend the Hudson, on the birth-day chris- 
tened as aforesaid. On every green point where the breeze rus- 
tles the foliage, and around which the crystal waters roll, you 
may see the grim ordnance, belching forth its thunder-clap and 
grass wadding ; the brave officers and ' marshals of the day,' 
sporting their emblems of immortal glory ; the urchins, with 
chequered pantaloons, and collars turned over their coats, their 
tender hearts and warm imaginations excited and wild with the 
grandeur of the scene ; and as you pass some beautiful town, you 
may see the stars and stripes waving from an eminence, near the 
meeting-house or town hall ; and as you pass the line of a street 
which tends to the river, you may eke observe ' the orator of the 
day,' with his roll of patriotism and eloquence in his hand, march- 
ing sublimely onward, behind prancing chargers, heroes in gay 
attire, meditating death to any possible foes of the country, on 
any future battalions emergency ; and sustained and soothed (he, 
the orator) by the brattling of brass horns, and the roll of the 
stirring drums behind him ; the ladies, meanwhile — God bless 
them ! — looking neat and cheerful at the windows, or in the 
streets. Then for the tourist to see the places in such a transit, 
hallowed in his country's history ; the old head-quarters of 
Washington, as at Newburgh, above whose humble roof, near 
which one tall and solitary Lombard waved and whispered 
mournfully in the air, there streamed a faded red banner, that 
had caught the roll of the war-drum in the revolution, and rustled 
its folds more quickly at the gun-peals that sent an iron storm 
into invading breasts ! And then, to think that millions on mil- 
lions, in ' many a lovely valley out of sight,' in states, and terri- 
tories stretching to the flowery prairies, and where the setting sun 
flames along the far mountains of the west, the same anthems 
were ascending ; the same glorious love of country inculcated ; 
it is a train of thought ennobling, pure, imperishable ! Then it 
is, that the mind has visions which no vocabulary can clothe and 
wreak upon expression ; when the faculties ache with that inde- 
scribable blending of love, hope, and pride, such as was faintly 
simdowed by the minstrel, when he sang : 

• Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land !' 



204 OLLAPODIANA. 

Presupposing that a man is possessed of a soul, it is my be- 
lief that he cannot traverse the Hudson, even if it be for the hun- 
dredth time, without new and deUcious sensations. The noble 
shores, now broken into sweet and solemn vistas, until they be- 
come steeped in romance ; the capacious bays ; the swelling 
sails ; the craft of all sorts, hastening to and fro ; all are impres- 
sive and beautiful. You have such a variety of steamer life 
about you, too ; that is the best of it — odd congregations of 
character. Yonder stands, looking at the shores, and now and 
then at his watch, a man who, by his look, should be a divine. 
He hath a white cravat around his neck, tied behind with extreme 
closeness, at * the precise point betwixt ornament and strangula- 
tion.' He proceedeth to the bow of the boat to look to his lug- 
gage. Such a one I saw ; and he was accosted, somewhat ab- 
ruptly, by a clock-pedlar, who had been whittling a pine shrub, 
near the tafFrail, (and whistling the sublime national song of Yan- 
kee Doodle, that most d'ignijied effusion,) and who bespake him 
thus : ' Square, you do n't know nawthing about that young wo- 
man, yender, do ye? — with that lay-lock dress onto her — do ye?' 
* No,' replied the ambassador from the high court above, * I do 
not ; and I wonder at your asking me such a question.' 

* Why, I axed you, 'cause I seen you a-looking at her your- 
self; and 'cause I think she's blamenation elegint!' 

' That's enough, my friend ; you had better run along,' was 
the august reply ; and the colloquy ended. 



Paused for a moment at Rhinebeck, to release a passenger in 
a small boat, let down amid the agitated foam at the steamer's 
side. How sad, that the beauties of a landscape should be stain- 
ed by the memories of death ! Here once lived, drinking the 
spirit of golden youthful hours, and rejoicing in existence, a warm 
and devoted friend, now alas! no more — John Rudolph 
SuTERMEiSTER. The pestilence, for such it was, swept him 
from being, in the pride of his intellect, and the full flush of his 
manhood. As I surveyed the place where he had embarked for 
the last time for the metropolis, in whose romantic suburbs his 
bones were so soon to lie, the illusion as it were, of a dream, came 
over me, and I almost fancied I could see him coming on board. 
I thought of the many pleasant hours we had consumed together, 
in walks where romance and early friendship sanctified the groves, 
as the red sun, tinting the lake, and closing the flowers, and 
beautifying the tender woodlands of spring, went down behind 
the cedars of the west, in a sea of gold, and crimson, and purple. 
Those were blessed hours ; moments wiien the enthusiasm, the 



OLLAPODIANA. 205 

glowing hopes, the far-reaching thoughts, which take to them- 
selves the wings of the eagle, and soar into the mysteries of Un- 
born years, coloring the future from the gorgeous prism of the 
imagination, all were ours. How, at that point of reminiscence, 
did they throng back to my experience and my view ! I fancied 
that my friend was by my side, his arm in mine ; and a voice, like 
the tones of a spirit, seemed breathing in my ear : 

' Yet what binds us, friend to friend, 
But that soul with soul can blend ? 
Soul-like were those hours of yore — 
Let us walk in soul once more.' 

Poor Shade ! He seemed ever to have a presentiment of his 
coming and early doom ; and his prophetic vision often pierced 
the future, in lines akin to the solemn stanzas which close his 
b«autiful 'Night Thoughts:' 

' When high in heaven the moon careers, 
She lights the fountain of young tears ; 

Her rays play on the fevered brow ; 
Plays on the cheek now bright no more — 

Plays on the withered almond bough, 
Which once the man of sorrow wore I 

***** 

» Behold this elm on which I lean, 

Meet emblem of my cruel fate ; 
But yestermorn, its leaves were green — 

Now it lies low and desolate ! 
The dew which bathes each faded leaf, 
Doth also bathe my brow of grief. 
Alas ! the dews of Death too soon 

Will gather o'er my dreamless sleep ; 
A.nd thou wilt beam, O pensive moon. 

Where love should mourn, and friends should weep I' 

But he was translated to an early paradise, by the kind fiat of 
a benevolent God. Pure in heart, fresh and warm in his affec- 
tions, he loved to live, because he lived to love ; and he is now 
in that better country, 

' Where light doth dance on many a crown, 
From suns that never more go down.' 

He had a languid but not unpleasing melancholy about his life, 
which entered into his verse, and moaned from every vibration 
of his excelling lyre. How beautiful, how touching, how mourn- 
ful, are these bodings in his song : 

' Give not to me the wreath of green — 
The blooming vase of flowers ; 
They breathe of joy that once hath been — 
Of gone and faded hours. 



206 OLLAPODIANA. 

I cannot love the rose ; though rich, 

Its beauty will not last ; 
Give me, give me the bloom, o'er which 

The early blight hath passed : 
The yellow buds — give them to rest 
On my cold brow and joyless breast, 

When life is failing fast. 

•Take far from me the wine-cup bright, 

In hours of revelry ; 
It suits glad brows, and bosoms light — 

It is not meet for me ; 
Oh ! I can pledge the heart no more, 

I pledged in days gone by ; 
Sorrow hath touch'd my bosom's core, 

And I am left to die ; 
Give me to drink of Lethe's wave — 
Give me the lone and silent grave, 

O'er which the night-winds sigh ! 

' Wake not, upon my tuneless ear. 

Soft music's stealing strain : 
It can not soothe, it can not cheer 

This anguish'd heart again : 
But place th' iEolian harp upon 

The tomb of her I love ; 
There, when heaven shrouds the dying sun, 

My weary steps will rove ; 
As o'er its chords Night pours its breath, 
To list the serenade of death, 

Her silent bourne above ! 

' Give me to seek that lonely tomb. 

Where sleeps the sainted dead, 
Now the pale night-fall throws its gloom 

Upon her narrow bed; 
There, while the winds which sweep along 

O'er the harp-strings are driven, 
And the funereal soul of song 

Upon the air is given. 
Oh ! let my faint and parting breath 
Be mingled with that song of death. 

And flee with it to heaven !' 

One picks up a marvellous degree of gratuitous and most 
novel information from the miscellaneous people who pass hither 
and thither in steam-craft. Bits of knowledge strike you una- 
ware ; and if you believe it, you will be a much wiser man, when 
you greet the morrow morn after a day's travel. For example, 
when we had passed the shadowy highlands, and the Kaatskills 
were seen heaving their broad blue shoulders against the brilliant 
horizon, a man with a pot-belly, in a round-about, with a bell- 
crowned hat, over which was drawn a green oil-skin, shading his 
tallowy cheeks, and most rubicund nose, approached my side, 



OLLAPODIANA. 207 

and interrupted my reverie, by volunteering some intelligence. 
* Them is very respectable mountains,' he said, ' but a man do n't 
know nothin' about articles of that kind, unless he sees the tower 
of Scotland. I am not, as you may likely be about to inquire, 
a natyve of that country ; but I have saw friends which has been 
there ; and furthermore, the mountains there was all named after 
relations of mine, by the mother's side. At present, all them 
elewated sections of country is nick-named. Now the name of 
Ben. Lomond has been curtailed into an abbreviation. That hill 
was named after an uncle of my grandfather's, Benjamin Lomond. 
Ben. Nevis was a brother of my grandmother's, who had the 
same given name ; and a better man than Benjamin Nevis never 
broke bread, or got up in the morning. From all accounts, he 
was consid'rable wealthy, at one time ; though I 've hear'n tell 
since, that he was a bu'sted man. But just to think of all them 
perversions ! Is n't it 'orrid ?' With this and other information 
did this glorious volunteer in history break in upon my musings ; 
and when he turned upon his heel, and clattered away, he left me 
with an impression of his visage in my mind akin to that which 
the fat knight entertained of Bardolph : ' Thou art our admiral ; 
thou bearest the lantern in the nose of thee ; thou art the knight 
of the burning lamp. I never see thy face, but I think of hell- 
fire, and Dives, that lived in purple ; for there he is in his robes, 
burning, burning.' 

You would scarcely think, arrived at Kaatskill Landing, on 
the Hudson, that just before you enter the coach which conveys 
you to the mountain, that any extraordinary prospect was about 
to open upon your vision. True, as when on the water, the 
great cloud Presence looms afar ; yet there is a long level coun- 
try between it and you ; and it is too early in the day to drink in 
the grandeur of the scene. You are content with watching the 
complex operations of that aquatic and equestrian mystery, a 
horse-boat, which plies from the humble tavern at the water's 
edge to the other shore of the Hudson. The animals give a con- 
sumptive wheeze, as they start, stretching out their long necks, 
indulging in faint recollections of that happy juvenescence, when 
they wasted the hours of their colthood in pastures of clover, and 
moving with a kind of unambitious sprawl, as if they cared but 
litde whether they stood or fell ; a turn of mind which induces 
them to stir their forward legs more glibly than those in the oppo- 
site quarter, quickening the former from pride, and * contracting 
the latter from motives of decency.' This is said to be their 
philosophy ; and they act upon it with a religious devotion 



208 OLLAPODIANA. 

As you move along from the landing, by pleasant and quiet 
waters, and through scenes of pastoral tranquillity, you seem to 
be threading a road which leads through a peaceful and varie- 
gated plain. You lose the memory of the highlands and the 
river, in the thought that you are taking a journey into a country 
as level as the lowliest land in Jersey. Sometimes the moun- 
tains, as you turn a point of the road, appear afar ; but ' are they 
clouds, or are they not V By the mass, you shall hardly tell. 
Meantime, you are a _/?^am-traveller, a quiet man. All at once 
you are wheeled upon a vernal theatre, some five or six miles in 
width, at whose extremity the bases of the Kaatskills 'gin to rise. 
How impressive the westering sunshine, sifting itself down the 
mighty ravines and hollows, and tinting the far-off summits with 
aerial light ! How majestic yet soft the gradations from the pon- 
derous grandeur of the formation ; up, up, to the giddy and deli- 
cate shadowings, which dimly veil and sanctify their tops, as ' sa- 
cristies of nature,' where the cedar rocks to the wind, and the 
screaming eagle snaps his mandibles, as he sweeps a circuit of 
miles with one full impulse of his glorious wing ! Contrasting 
the roughness of the basis with the printed beauty of the iris- 
hued and skiey ultimatum, I could not but deem that the bard ot 
' Thanatopsis' had well applied to the Kaatskills those happy lines 
wherein he apostrophizes the famous heights of Europe : 

' Your peaks are beautiful, ye Appenines, 
In the soft light of your serenest skies; 
From the broad highland region, dark with pines, 
Fair as the hills of paradise, ye rise !' 

Be not too eager, as you take the first stage of the mountain, 
to look about you ; especially, be not anxious to look ofar. Now 
and then, it is true, as the coach turns, you can not choose but 
see a landscape, to the south and eKst, farther «^than you ever 
saw one before, broken up into a thousand vistas ; but look you at 
them with a sleepy, sidelong eye, to the end that you may finally 
receive from the Platform the full glory of the final view. In 
the meantime, there is enough directly about you to employ all 
your eyes, if you had the ocular endowments of an Argus. 
Huge rocks, that might have been sent from warring Titans, 
decked with moss, overhung with rugged shrubbery, and cooling 
the springs that trickle from beneath them, gloom beside the way ; 
vast chasms, which your coach shall sometimes seem to over- 
hang, yawn on the left ; the pine and cedar-scented air comes 
freely and sweetly from the brown bosom of the woods ; until, 
one high ascent attained, a level for a while succeeds, and your 
smoking horses rest, while, with expanding nostril, you drink in 



OLLAPODIANA. 209 

the rarer and yet rarer air ; a stillness like the peace of Eden, 
(broken only by the whisper of leaves, the faint chant of em- 
bowered birds, or the distant notes that come 'mellowed and 
minglinf^ from the vale below'), hangs at the portal of your ear. 
It is a time to be still, to be contemplative ; to hear no voice but 
your own ejaculations, or those of one who will share and 
heighten your enjoyment, by partaking it in peace, and as one 
with you, yet alone. 



Passing the ravine, where the immortal Rip Van Winkle 
played his game of nine-pins with the wizards of that neighbor- 
hood, and quaffed huge draughts of those bewildering flagons, 
which made him sleep for years, I flung myself impatiently from 
the ' quarter-deck' of the postillion whose place I had shared ; I 
grasped that goodly globe of gold and ivory which heads my 

customary cane — the present of 'My Hon. friend' S , and 

which once drew into itself the sustenance of life from that hal- 
lowed mound which guards the dust of Washington, and 
pushed gayly on, determined to pause not, until my w^eary feet 
stood on the Platform. The road was smooth and good ; the 
air refreshing and pure, beyond description. The lungs play 
there without an effort ; it is a luxury to breathe. How holy 
was the stillness ! Not a sound invaded the solemn air ; it was 
like inhaling the sanctity of the empyrean. The forest tops soon 
began to stir as with a mighty wind. I looked, and on both sides 
of the road there were trees whose branches had been broken, as 
if by the wings of some rushing tempest. It was the havoc of 
winter snows. 

There is a wonderful deception in the approach to the 
Mountain-House, which, when discovered, will strike the travel- 
ler with amazement. At one point of the road, where the man- 
sion which is to terminate your pilgrimage heaves its white form 
in view, (you have seen it from the river for nearly half a day,) 
it seems not farther than a hundred rods, and hangs apparently 
on the verge of a stupendous crag over your head ; the road 
. turns again, it is out of sight, and the summits, near its locus in 
quo, are nearly three miles off. The effect is wonderful. The 
mountain is growing upon you. 

I continued to ascend, slowly, but with patient steps, and with 
a flow of spirit which I can not describe. Looking occasionally 
to the east, I saw a line of such parti-colored clouds, (as then I 
deemed them,) yellow, green, and purple, silver-laced, and violet- 
bordered, that it raeseemed I never viewed the like kaleidoscopic 

14 



ilO OLLAPODIANA. 

presentments. All this time, I wondered that I had seen no 
land for many a weary mile. 

Hill after hill, mere ridges of the mountain, was attained ; 
summit after summit surmounted ; and yet it seemed to me that 
the house was as far off as ever. Finally it appeared, and 
a-nigh ; to me the ' earth's one sanctuary.' I reached it ; my 
name was on the book ; the queries of the publican, as to ' how 
many coach-loads were behind,' (symptoms of a yearning for the 
almighty dollar, even in this holy of nature's holies,) were an- 
swered, and I stood on the Platform. 



Good Reader! expect me not to describe the indescribable. 
I feel now, while memory is busy in my brain, in the silence of 
my library, caUing up that vision to my mind, much as I did 
when I leaned upon my staff before that omnipotent picture, and 
looked abroad upon its GoD-written magnitude. It was a vast 
and changeful, a majestic, an interminable landscape; a fairy, 
grand, and delicately-colored scene, with rivers for its lines of 
reflection ; with highlands and the vales of States for its shadow- 
ings, and far-off mountains for its frame. Those parti-colored and 
varying clouds, I fancied I had seen as I ascended, were but por- 
tions of the scene. All colors of the rainbow ; all softness of 
harvest-field, and forest, and distant cities, and the towns that sim- 
ply dotted the Hudson ; and far beyond where that noble river, 
diminished to a brooklet, rolled its waters, there opened mountain 
after mountain, vale after vale. State after State, heaved against 
the horizon, to the north-east and south, in impressive and sub- 
lime confusion ; while still heijond., in undulating ridges, filled 
with all hues of light and shade, coquetting with the cloud, rolled 
the rock-ribbed and ancient frame of this dim diorama ! As the 
sun went down, the houses and cities diminished to dots ; the 
evening guns of the national anniversary came booming up from 
the valley of the Hudson ; the bonfires blazed along the peaks 
of distant mountains, and from the suburbs of countless villages 
along the river ; while in the dim twilight, 

' From coast to coast, and from town to town. 
You could see all the white sails gleaming down.' 

The steam-boats, hastening to and fro, vomited their fires upon 
the air, and the circuit of unnumbered miles sent up its sights 
and sounds, from the region below, over which the vast shadows 
of the mountains were stealing. 

Just before the sun dropped behind the west, his slant beams 
poured over the south mountain, and fell upon a wide sea of 



OLLAPODIANA. 211 

feathery clouds, which were sweeping midway along its form, 
obscuring the vale below. I sought an eminence in the neighboiv- 
hood, and with the sun at my back, saw a giant form depicted in 
a misty halo on the clouds below. He was identified, insubstan- 
tial but extensive Shape ! I stretched forth my hand, and the 
giant spectre waved his shadowy arm over the whole county of 
Dutchess, through the misty atmosphere ; while just at his super- 
natural coat-tail, a shower of light played upon the highlands, 
verging toward West Point, on the river, which are to the eye, 
from the Mountain-House, level slips of shore, that seem scarce 
so gross as knolls of the smallest size. 



Of the grandeur of the Kaatskills at sunrise ; of the patriotic 
blazon which our bonfire made on the Fourth, at evening ; of the 
Falls, and certain pecuniary trickeries connected with their grim 
majesty, and a general digest of the stupendous scene, shall these 
not be discoursed hereafter, and in truthful wise ? Yea, reader, 
verily, and from the note-book of thine, faithful to the end, 

Ollapod. 



NUMBER TWENTY. 

November, 1837. 

We parted, good my reader, last at the Kaatskills — no ? * It 
was a summer's evening ;' and with my shadow on the mountain 
mist, I ween, vanished in your thoughts the memory of me. Well, 
that was natural. A hazy, dream-like idea of my whereabout 
may have haunted you for a moment — but it passed. I can not 
allow you to escape so easily. ' Lend us the loan' of your eye, 
for some twenty minutes : and if you are a home-bred and un- 
travelled person, 't is likely, as the valet says in Cinderella, that 
I may chance to make you stare I' 



In discoursing of the territorial wonderments in question, 
which have been moulded by the hand of the Almighty, I can 
not suppose that you who read my reveries will look with a com- 
pact, imaginative eye upon that which has forced its huge radius 
upon my own extended vision. I ask you, howbeit, to take my 
arm, and step forth with me from the piazza of the Mountain 
House. It is night. A few stars are peering from a dim azure 



212 OLLAPODIANA. 

field of western sky ; the high-soaring breeze, the breath of heav- 
en, makes a stilly music in the neighboring pines ; the meek crest 
of Dian rolls along the blue depths of ether, tinting with silver 
lines the half dun, half fleecy clouds ; they who are in the parlors 
make ' considerable' noise ; there is an individual at the end of 
the portico discussing his quadruple julep, and another devotedly 
sucking the end of a cane, as if it were full of mother's milk ; he 
hummeth also an air from II Pirata, and wonders, in the sim- 
plicity of his heart, ' why the devil that there steam-boat from 
Albany does n't begin to show its lights down on the Hudson.' 
His companion of the glass, however, is intent on the renewal 
thereof. Calling to him the chief ' help' of the place, he says • 
'Is that other antifogmatic ready?' 

' No, sir.' 

' Well, now, person, what's the reason ? What was my last 
observation ? Says I to you, says I, ' Make me a fourth of 
them beverages ;' and moreover, I added, ' Just you keep doing 
so ; be constantly making them, till the order is countermanded.' 
Give us another; go ! vanish ! — ' disappear and appear !' ' 

The obsequious servant went ; and returning with the desired 
draught, observed probably for the thousandth time : ' There ! 
that's what I call the true currency ; them's the ginooyne mint 
drops ; ha — ha — ha ! — these separate divisions of his laughter 
comins: out of his mouth at intervals of about half a minute each. 



There is a bench near the verge of the Platform where, 
when you sit at evening, the hollow-sounding air comes up from 
the vast vale below, like the restless murmurs of the ocean. 
Anchor yourself here for a while, reader, with me. It being the 
evening of the national anniversary, a few patriotic individuals 
are extremely busy in piling up a huge pyramid of dried pine 
branches, barrels covered with tar, and kegs of spirits, to a height 
of some fifteen or twenty feet — perhaps higher. A bonfire is 
premeditated. You shall see anon, how the flames will rise. 
The preparations are completed ; the fire is applied. Hear how 
it crackles and hisses ! Slowly but spitefully it mounts from 
limb to limb, and from one combustijjle to another, until the 
whole welkin is a-blaze, and shaking as with thunder ! It is a 
beautiful sight. The gush of unwonted radiance rolls in efful- 
gent surges adown the vale. How the owl hoots with surprise 
at the interrupting light ! Bird of wisdom, it is the Fourth ! 
and you may well add your voice to swell the choral honors of 
the time. How the tall old pines, withered by the bidng scathe 
of Eld, rise to the view, afar and near ; white shafts, bottomed 



O L L A P O D I A N A . 213- 

in darkness, and standing like the serried spears of an innumera- 
ble army ! The groups around the beacon are gathered togett^- 
er, but are forced to enlarge the circle of their acquaintance, by 
the growing intensity of the increasing blaze. Some of them, 
being ladies, their white robes waving in the mountain breeze, 
and the light shining full upon them, present, you observe, a 
beautiful appearance. The pale pillars of the portico flash fit- 
fully into view, now seen and gone, like columns of mist. The 
swarthy African who kindled the fire regards it with perspiring 
face and grinning ivories ; and lo ! the man who hath mastered 
the quintupled glass of metamorphosed eau-de-vie, standing by 
the towering pile of flame, and, reaching his hand on high, he 
smiteth therewith his sinister pap, with a most hollow sound ; the 
knell, as it were of his departing reason. In short, he is making 
an oration ! 

Listen to those voiceful currents of air, traversing the vast pro- 
found below the Platform ! What a mighty circumference do 
they sweep ! Over how many towns, and dwellings, and streams, 
and incommunicable woods ! Murmurs of the dark, sources and 
awakeners of sublime imagination, swell from afar. You have 
thoughts of eternity and power here, which shall haunt you ever- 
more. But we must be early stirrers in the morning. Let U3 
to bed. 

You can lie on your pillow at the Kaatskill House, and see 
the god of day look upon you from behind the pinnacles of the 
White Mountains in New Hampshire, hundreds of miles away. 
Noble prospect ! As the great orb heaves up in ineffable gran- 
deur, he seems rising from beneath you, and you fancy that you 
have attained an elevation where may be seen the motion of the 
world. No intervening land to limit the view, you seem suspend- 
ed in mid-air, without one obstacle to check the eye. The scene 
is indescribable. The chequered and interminable vale, sprinkled 
with groves, and lakes, and towns, and streams ; the mountains 
afar off, swelling tumultuously heavenward, like waves of the 
ocean, some incarnadined with radiance, others purpled in shade ; 
all these, to use the language of an auctioneer's advertisement, 
* are too tedious to mention, but may be seen on the premises.' 
I know of but one picture which will give the reader an idea of 
this ethereal spot. It was the view which the angel Michael was 
polite enough, one summer morning, to point out to Adam, from 
the highest hill of Paradise : 

* His eye might there command wherever stood 
City of old or modern fame, the seat 



214 OLLAPODIANA. 

Of mightiest empire, from the destined walla 

Of Cambalu, seat of Cathai'an Can, 

And Sarmachund by Oxus, Temir's throne, 

To Paquin of Sinjcan kings ; and thence 

To Agra and Lahor of great Mogul 

Down to the golden Chersonese ; or where 

The Persian in Ecbatan sat, or since 

In Hizpahan ; or where the Russian Ksar 

In Mosco : or the Sultan in Bizance, 

Turchestan born ; nor could his eye not ken 

The empire of Negus, to his utmost port, 

Erocco ; and the less maritime kings 

Mombaza, and Quiloa, and Melind, 

And Sofala, thought Ophir, to the realm 

Of Congo and Angola, farthest south ; 

Or thence from Niger flood to Atlas' mount, 

The kingdoms of Ahnanzor, Fez, and Suz, 

Morocco, and Algier, and Tremizen ; 

On Europe thence, and where Rome was to sway 

The world ; in spirit perhaps he also saw 

Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume, 

(And Texas too, great Houston's seat — who knows?) 

And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat 

Of Atabalipa ; and yet unspoiled 

Guiana, whose great city Geyro'ns sons 

Call El Dorado.' 



Of the Falls, sooth to say, little can be ejaculated in the eulo- 
gistic way. The cataract is only ' on hand' for a part of the 
time. It is kept in a dam, and let down for two shillings. The 
demand for the article has sometimes exceeded the supply, es- 
pecially in dry weather. We quote the sales, as per register, 
while there, at perhaps some three hundred yards. Oh, Mercu- 
ry ! Scenery by the square foot ! Sublimity by the quintal ! 

It looks to be a perilous enterprise, to descend the Kaatskills, 
You feel, as you commence the ' facilis descensus,' (what an un- 
hackneyed phrase, to be sure !) very much the sort of sensation 
probably experienced by Parachute Cocking, whose end was so 
shocking. The wheels of the coach are shod with the prepara- 
tion of iron slippers, which are essential to a hold up ; and as 
you bowl and grate along, with wilderness-chasms and a brawling 
stream mayhap on one hand, and horrid masses of stone seem- 
ingly ready to tumble upon you on the other ; the far plain 
stretching like the sea beneath you, in the mists of the morning ; 
your emotions are ^(Zo-e«//. You are not afraid — not you, in- 
deed ! Catch you at such folly ! No ; but you wish most de- 
voutly that you were some nine miles down, notwithstanding, and 
are looking eagerly for that consummation. 



OLLAPODIANA. 215 

We paused just long enough at the base of the mountain, to 
water the cattle, and hear a bit of choice grammar from the land- 
lord ; a burly, big individual, ' careless of the objective case,' 
and studious of ease, in bags of tow-cloth, (trowsers by courtesy,) 
and a roundabout of the same material ; the knees of the unmen- 
tionables apparently greened by kneeling humbly at the lactifer- 
ous udder of his only cow, day by day. He addressed ' the gen- 
tleman that driv' us down :' 

' Well, Josh, I seen them rackets /' 

' Wa' n't they almighty bright V was the inquisitive reply. 

This short colloquy had reference to a train of fire-works 
which were set off the evening before at the Mountain House ; 
long snaky trails of light, flashing in their zigzag course through 
the darkness. It was beautiful to see those fiery sentences writ- 
ten fitfully on the sky, fading one by one, like some Hebrew 
character, some Nebuchadnezzar scroll, in the dark profound, and 
showing, as the rocket fell and faded, that beneath the lowest 
deep to which it descended, there was one yet lower still, to 
which it swept * plumb-down, a shower of fire.' 

We presently rolled away, and were soon drawn up in front 
of the Hudson and the horse-boat, at the landing. The same 
unfortunate animals were peering forth from that aquatic vehicle ; 
one of them dropping his hairy lip, with a melancholy expression, 
and the other strenuously endeavoring to remove a wisp of straw 
which had found a lodgment on his nose. The effort, however, 
was vain ; his physical energies sank under the task ; he gave it 
up, and was soon under way for the opposite shore, with his four- 
legged fellow traveller, and three bipeds, who were smoking segars. 



It is right pleasant and joyous to see the number of juvenile 
patriots who are taken forth into the country, (whose glories for 
the first time, perhaps, are shed upon their town-addicted eyes,) 
on the great national holiday. To them, the flaunting honors of 
the landscape have a new beauty, and a joyous meaning ; the 
sun hangs above them like a great ball of fire in the sky ; the 
waters wear a glittering sheen ; and the wide moving pulse of 
life beats with a universal thrill of happiness to them. I could 
not but note the number of urchins in the steamer, whom their 
'paternal derivatives' were guiding around, and showing to their 
vision at least, * all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
them.' 

Well, to those who are disposed to glean philosophy from 
the mayhap less noticeable objects of this busy world, there are 



216 OLLAPODIANA. 

few sights more lovely than childhood. The little cherub who 
now sits at my knee, and tries, with tiny effort, to clutch the 
quill with which I am playing for you, good reader ; whose ca- 
pricious taste, varying from ink-stand to paper, and from that to 
books, and every other portable thing — all 'moveables that I 
could tell you of — he has in his little person those elements 
which constitute both the freshness of our sublunary mortality, 
and that glorious immortality which the mortal shall yet put on. 
Gazing upon his fair young brow, his peach-like cheek, and the 
depths of those violet eyes, I feel myself rejuvenated. That 
which bothered Nicodemus, is no marvel to me. I feel that I 
have a new existence ; nor can I dispel the illusion. It is harder, 
indeed, to believe that he will ever be what I am, than that I am 
otherwise than he is now. I can not imagine that he will ever 
become a pilosus adult, with harvests for the razor on that downy 
chin. Will those golden locks become the brown auburn ? 
Will that forehead rise as a varied and shade-changing record of 
pleasure or care ? Will the classic little lips, now colored as by 
the radiance of a ruby, ever be fitfully bitten in the glow of liter- 
ary composition? — and will those sun-bright locks, which hang 
about his temples like the soft lining of a summer cloud, become 
meshes where hurried fingers shall thread themselves in play ? 
By the mass, I can not tell. But this I know. That which 
hath been, shall be : the lot of manhood, if he live, will be upon 
him ; the charm, the obstacle, the triumphant fever ; the glory, the 
success, the far-reaching thoughts, 

' That make them eagle wings 
To pierce the unborn years.' 

I might ' prattle out of reason,' and fancy what, in defiance of 
precedent furnished by propinquity of blood, he possibly might 
be ; an aldermanic personage, redolent of wines and soup ; 
goodly in visage, benevolent in act, but strict in justice. I might 
fancy him with a most voluminous periphery, and a laugh that 
shakes the diaphragm, from the vno j)ectorc to the vast circumfer- 
ence of the outer man. These things may be imagined, but not 
believed. Yet it is with others as with ourselves : ' We know 
what they are, but not what they may be.' Time adds to the 
novel thoughts of the child, the tricks and joyance of the urchin; 
the glow of increasing years, the passion of the swelling heart, 
when experience seems to school its energies. But in the flush 
of young existence, I can compare a child, the pride and delight 
of its mother and its kindred, to nothing else on earth, of its own 
form or image. It is like a young and beautiful bird ; heard, 



OLLAPODIAXA. 217 

perhaps, for once, in the days of our juvenescence, and remem- 
bered ever after, though never seen again. Its thoughts, Uke.the 
rainbow-colored messenger discoursed of in the poetic entomol- 
ffy of La Martine : 

' Born with the spring, and with the roses dying — 
Through the clear sky on Zephyr's pinions saihng ; 

On the young flowret's open bosom lying — 
Perfume, and hght, and the blue air inhaling ; 

Shaking the thin dust from its wings, and fleeing, 
And soaring like a breath in boundless heaven : 

How like Desire, to which no rest is given I 

Which still uneasy, rifling every treasure. 

Returns at last above, to seek for purer pleasure.* 



In truth, I do especially affect that delightful period in the life 
of every descendant of old Fig Leaves, in Eden, which may 
truly be called the Ayril of the heart. How sweet are its smiles ! 
And on the face of babyhood, ' the tears,' to use the dainty term 
of Sir Philip Sidney, ' come dropping down like raine in y^ sun- 
shine, and no heed being taken to wype them, they hang upon 
the cheekes and lippes, as upon cherries which the dropping tree 
bedeweth.' Halcyon season ! Its pure thoughts and rich emo- 
tions come and go, hke the painted waftage of a morning cloud ; 
or most like that fulness of pearls which may be shaken from the 
matin apray. The night, to such, comes with its vesper hush 
and stillness, like the shadow of a shade. Sorrow is transient, 
and Hope ever new. Sabbath of the soul, fresh from its God ! 
To the vision of these, how brightly the leaves move, and the 
breeze-crisped waters quiver ! How their quick pulses bound, 
in the newness of existence, at that which is ancient and dis- 
dained of the common eye ! To them, every color is prismatic, 
and wears tlie hue of Eden. With thoughts like these, however 
un-novel, I apostrophize ' My Boy :' 

Thou hast a fair unsullied cheek, 

A clear and dreaming eye. 
Whose bright and winning glances speak 

Of life's first revelry ; 
And on thy brow no look of care 
Comes like a cloud, to cast a shadow there. 

In feeling's early freshness blest. 

Thy wants and wishes few : 
Rich hopes are garnered in thy breast, 

As summer's morning dew 
Is found, like diamonds, in the rose, 
Nestling, mid folded leaves, in sweet repose. 



218 OLLAPODIANA. 

Keep thus, in love, the heritage 
Of thy ephemeral spring ; 

Keep its pure thoughts, till after age 
Weigh down thy spirit's wing ; 

Keep the warm heart, the hate of sin, 

And heavenly peace will on thy soul break in. 

And when the even-song of years 
Brings in its shadowy train 

The record of life's hopes and fears, 
Let it not be in vain. 

That backward on existence thou canst look, 

As on a pictured page or pleasant book. 



In the wonder which we feel as to children growing old, we 
are apt to associate ourselves with them. When one who, in the 
hey-dey of his blood, and before the glow of the purpureum 
lumen of his ' bettermost hours' has begun to diminish, is led to 
regard (and to hear, beside, for the fact rings often at his auricu- 
lar portals) that a vital extract is extant, he wonders if that 

* embryon atom' will ever come to denominate the agent of his 
being as ' the old gentleman!' Of course, it must be impossible. 
Yet ' there is no mistake on some points.' In the course of his 
travels. Old Time effects many a marvel ; but he pushes on with 
his agricultural implement, and streaming forelock ; (nobody 

* does him proud,' and he disdains the toupee,) until his oldest 
friends are metamorphosed, and his youngest begin to experience 
how ' tempora mutantur, et ?ios mut.amur in illis.^ This reminds 
me of a song, which I like amazingly, because it contains such a 
mingling of truth, beauty, and melody : 

I OFTEN think each tottering form 

That limps along in life's decline. 
Once bore a heart as young, as warm, 

As full of idle thoughts as mine ! 

And each has had his dream of joy, 

His own unequalled, pure romance ; 
Commencing, when the blushing boy 

First thrills at lovely woman's glance. 

And each could tell his tale of youth — 
Would think its scenes of love evince 

More passion, more unearthly truth, 
Than any tale, before or since. 

Yes ! they could tell of tender lays 
At midnight penned, in classic shades, 

Of days more bright than modern days — 
Of maids more fair than living maida. 



OLLAPODIANA. 219 

Of whispers in a willing ear, 

Of kisses on a blushing cheek — 
Each kiss, each whisper, far too dear • 

For modern lips to give or speak. 

Of prospects, too, untimely crossed, 

Of passion slighted or betrayed — 
Of kindred spirits early lost, 

And buds that blossomed but to fade. 

Of beaming eyes, and tresses gay, 

Elastic form and noble brow. 
And charms — that all have passed away. 

And left them — what we see them now! 

And is it thus ! — is human love 

So very light and frail a thing ! 
And must Youth's brightest visions move 

For ever on Time's restless wing ? 

Must all the eyes that still are bright. 

And all the lips that talk of bliss. 
And all the forms so fair to sight. 

Hereafter only come to this ? 

Then what are Love's best visions worth, 

If we at length must lose them thus ? 
If all we value most on earth, 
^ Ere long must fade away from us ? 

If that owe being whom we take 

From all the world, and still recur 
To all she said, and for her sake 

Feel far from joy, when far from her. 

If that one form which we adore, 
From youth to age, in bliss or pain, 

Soon withers and is seen no more — 
Why do we love — if love be vain ? 

In what strange contrast with a picture like this, does the beau- 
tiful Uhland place some of his nature-colored characters ! How 
sweetly does he draw the picture of two devoted beings, practis- 
ing palmistry, with palm to palm, and uttering a world of downy 
nonsense beneath the rolling moon : 

• In a garden fair were roaming. 

Two lovers, hand in hand ; 
Two pale and shadowy creatures. 
They sat in that flowery land. 

On the lips, they kissed each other, 

On the cheeks so full and smooth ; 
They were wrapt in close embraciogs — 

They were warm in the flush of youth.' 



220 OLI.APODIANA. 

These are very apt verses to be made directly out of a man's 
head, are n't they ? How the author must have been haunted 
with visions all 

' Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
Or Cytherea's breath.' 



I FORGOT to observe, that the postillion of whom I have spok- 
en, was rather profane. He told a story of his experience some 
years before, with a divine, who was riding with him, on his pro- 
fessional seat, in the west, to attend a ' protracted meeting.' ' It 
was about 'lection time,' said he, ' and I had just gi'n in my vote. 
Of course, I was used with hospitality ; and I was a leetle * how- 
come-you-so ?' as Miss Kimball says in her Tower. Well I 
driv on, at an uncommon rapid rate ; (that's a fact ;) and when- 
sumever I threw out the mail-bags at a stoppin' place, I replen- 
ished the inner individual. At last I became, as the parson ob- 
served, ' manifestly inebriated ;' and he ondertook for to lecter me! 
I said nothing, until he observed, or rather remarked, that ' he 
should not be surprised if I fell from my seat some day, and 
would be found with my head broke, and extravagantsated blood 
on the pious matter.' ' 

' * Well,' says I, ' I should n't be surprised ; it would be just 
my d d etarnal luck !' 

* He did n't say no more all the trip. I shot him up.' 

'But the election' — it was inquired — 'did you succeed in 
that?' 

' Oh, yes ; and the man that we put in, made a fool of himself 
at Albany, into the Legislature, and there was a piece put into a 
book about him a'terwards.' 

'Ah? — what was it?' 

* Here it is,' was the reply of my gentleman, as he drew from 
his pocket a worn fragment of a printed page. 

' On the first day of the session, he was enabled to utter the be- 
ginning of a sentence, which would probably have had no end, if 
it had not been cut short, as it was, by the Speaker. On the presen- 
tation of some petitions, which he thought had a bearing on his 
Cavorite subject, the election by the people of public notaries, in- 
spectors of beef and pork, sole-leather, and staves and heading, 
he got on his legs. ' When,' said he, ' Mr. Speaker, we consider 
die march of intellect in these united, as I may say confederated, 
States, and how the genius of liberty soars, in the vast expanse, 
stretching her eagle plumes from the Pacific Ocean to Long Island 

sound, gazing with eyes of fire upon the ruins of empires ' 

just at which point of aerial elevation, the Speaker brought 



OI.LAPODIANA. 221 

down the metaphorical flight of the genius, and that of the aspir- 
ing orator together, by informing the latter that he should, be 
happy to hear him when in order, but that there was now no 
question before the House /'* 

' What was the name of this man?' was a query following this 
eloquent extract. 

' Smith, Sir, was his name; Smith, John Smith, of Si^ithopolis 
and surrogate of Smith County. He was the first man in Smith- 
ville ; was a blacksmith in his youth, a goldsmith a'terwards, and 
John Smith through all. A consistent man. Sir ; no change 
with him ; always upright, but always poor ; unchanging, for he 
had nothing to change with ! He was a distinguished man ; had 
letters advertised in the post office ; owned a blood horse ; 
led the choir at church ; read ' the Declaration' on every Fourth- 
of-July ; made all the acquaintances he could ; was exceedingly 
fussy on all occasions. In short, he was a very great man in a 
smill way. His speech will stand as a memorial of his genius, 
when the Kaatskills shall be troubled with the mildew of time, 
and the worms of decay !' 



WsLL — the reign of autumn, for the present year, has come ; 
and tlere will doubtless be the annual quotations of description 
in the newspaper market. Some of it will remain on first hands, 
and tht rest will find a ready circulation. Meditation will vent 
itself U')on apostrophe ; poetry will be engendered ; old songs 
will be «-sung. It is, in truth, a delicious season, and no one 
can be bamed for yielding himself up to its influences. When 
the first )ellow surges of September sunlight seem to roll through 
the atmosphere ; when the dust of the city street, as you look at 
some stat^y carriage, whose wheels are flashing toward the west, 
seems risirg around them like an atmosphere, colored betwixt 
the hue of rold and crimson : when the mountains put on their 
beautiful garments, where tints of the rainbow mingle with the 
aerial blue o. the sky ; when the winds have a melancholy music 
in their tone, and the heaven above us is enrobed in surpassing 
purity and lu^-e ; thcji, the dwellers in great capitals may per- 
haps conceive \{ the richness and fruition of the country ; but 
they cannot ap|roach the reality. The harvest moon has waned ; 
the harvest hon^ been held ; the wheat is in the garner ; the last 
peaches hang bl\shing on the topmost branches where they grew ; 
the fragrant appl<6 lie in fairy-colored mounds beneath the or- 
chard trees, and he cheerful husbandman whistles at the cider- 

• Sands. 



229 OLLAPODIANA. 

press. As September yields her withered sceptre into the grasp 
of October, the hills begin to invest themselves in those many- 
colored robes which are the livery of their new sovereign. As 
my observant friend, (a well-beloved Epenetus,) who hath dis- 
coursed of matters outre-raer, so richly hymns it, then there comes 

A MELLOAv richness on the clustered trees ; 
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes, 
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, 
And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds, 
Morn, on the mountain, like a summer bird, 
Lifts up her purple wing ; and in the vales 
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, 
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life 
Within the solemn woods of ash deep crimsoned. 
And silver beech, the maple yellow leaved— 
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down 
By the way-side a-weary. Through the trees 
The golden robin moves ; the purple finch, 
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds, 
A winter bird comes with its plaintive whistle. 
And pecks by the witch hazel ; while aloud. 
From cottage roofs, the warbling blue-bird sings. 

To me, there is nothing of that dark solemnity about th3 au- 
tumnal season, which it has to the morbid or the foreboding. It 
comes, laden with plenty, and breathing of peace. There seems 
a sweet monition in every whisper of the gale, and the ristle of 
every painted leaf, which may speak a world of tranquillit/" to the 
contemplative mind. If there be sadness around and vithin, it 
is the sadness which is cherished, and the gloom that puifies ; it 
is that doubtful twilight of the heart, which is succeeded at last 
by a glorious morning. We think with the serene and leavenly- 
minded Malcolm, of the distant, or the departed, who nave gone 
before us to lay down their heads upon pillows of cl.y, and re- 
pose in the calm monotony of the tomb. Reflectior asserts her 
sway, and the spirit expands into song : 

Sweet Sabbath of the Year ! 

When evening lights decay, 
Thy parting steps methinks I hear, 

Steal from the world away. 

Amid thy silent bowers, 

'T is sad but sweet to dwell. 
Where falling leaves and fading flowed 

Around me breathe farewell. 

Along thy sun-set skies. 

Their glories melt in shade ; 
And like the things we fondly prize 

Seem lovelier as they fade. 



OLLAPODIANA. 223 

A deep and crimson streak 

The dying leaves disclose, 
As on Consumption's waning cheek, ' 

Mid ruin, blooms the rose. 

The scene each vision brings 

Of beauty in decay ; 
Of fair and early-faded things, 

Too exquisite to stay ; 

Of joys that come no more ; 

Of flowers whose bloom is fled ; 
Of farewells wept upon the shore 

Of friends estranged, or dead ! 

Of all, that now may seem 

To memory's tearful eye 
The vanished beauty of a dream. 

O'er which we gaze and sigh I 



And now, reader, Benedicite! ' Hail — and farewell!' 

Decidedly thine, Ollapod. 



NUMBER TWENTY-ONE. 

December, 1837. 

As I was saying last month, beloved reader, that *I am 

thine in promise,' or to that purport, I have anchored myself in 
my fauteuil, to the end that I may be thine in fulfilment. In our 
conversation about the Kaatskills, I omitted sundry pertinent mat- 
ters, with the which, however, malgre the postponement, I shall 
not here afflict. Since that period, I have for the most part been 
pent i' the populous city, amid the wakeful noises by day thereof, 
and by night the calm security of the streets thereof. I affect 
the supernatural bawl of the watchman, as it rings up to my pil- 
low ; I love the serenade which the neighboring lover sings to his 
fair, and of which I get the good as well as herself; I like to see 
the straggling cloud go floating over the slumbering town at mid- 
night, with the moon silvering its edge ; or mayhap to note the 
sheen of a star greeting the v^ision over a chimney-pot. All these 
have charms for my eye and ear ; I seem to see holy sights and 
shapes in the firmament ; the winds come and go on their circuits, 
unknowing how many brows they fan ; and at times they hush a 
whole metropolis to silence, insomuch that its wide boundary 
scarce produces so much noise ' as doth a chestnut in a farmer's 
fire.' 



224 OLLAPODIANA. 

By-the-by, when the sun begins to set at right declensions, 
and make his winter arches, I ahvays think of the roaring fires in the 
domicil of the rural husbandman, with feelings akin to envy. Ye 
who toast your heels by anthracite ; who survey the meagre ' blue 
blazes' of Liverpool coal, and Vv'hose nostrils take in the dry odor 
thereof, being reminded thereby of those ever-burning brimstone 
beds, where Apollyon keeps his court, and Judas has his resi- 
dence ; ye, I say, who have a life-long intimacy with these sorts of 
fuel, can have but small conception of a winter's fire in the country. 
Far round doth it illuminate the apartment where it rages ; intolera- 
ble is proximity thereunto ; and its ' circle of admirers' is always 
large, because they can not come a-nigh. A pleasant disdain is 
felt for the snow which whirls on whistling wings against the pane ; 
the herds are huddled in their cotes secure ; and the storm has 
permission to mumble its belly full, and spit snow at its pleasure. 
Hugeous reminiscences of delight come over my spirit, in this 
connexion ; post-school-hours ; the steaming bowl of flip, or 
those orthographical convocations, where buxom maidens exulted 
in their secret heart, as tall words were vociferously mounted, in 
correct emission, by greenhorn swain. Sleigh-rides likewise ; 
amatory pressures, under skin of buffalo or bison ; long proces- 
sions through wintry villages, whose tall smokes rose from every 
chimney ; pillars of blue, standing upright in the air, like columns 
of sapphire. Cider, with its acidity of remembrance; apples, that 
melted on the tongue, as they descended toward the diaphragm ; 
landscapes of snow ; and slides down hill ! — not forgetting those 
skating achievements, which for the time being fill the mind with 
such pride. All these circumstances and events, with curious con- 
fusion, hang in a nucleus about my memories of a rural hearth; 
' but these I passen by, with nameless numbers moe.' Shaks- 
peare had a good notion of the comforts to which I refer. He 
puts a lovely sentiment into the mouth of King Richard H., 
when he causes him to utter to the royal lady this tender lan- 
guage : 

' Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France : 

Think I am dead ; and that from me thou tak'st, 

As from my death-bed, my last hving leave. 

In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire 

Witli good old folks ; and let them tell thee tales 

Ofwoful ages, long ago betid; 

And ere thou bid good-night, to quit their grief, 

Tell thou the lamentable fall of me !' 



I HAVE not, howbeit, reader, as might be inferred from what 
has been herein before written, spent all the mean season spoken 



OLLAPODIANA. 225 

of, in the busy capital. I have made, with hoi&ehold appurten- 
ances, and delights, and responsibilities, an autumnal tour or '.ex- 
crescence' into the country, round about the Empire Town. 
Quotidian columns have borne tlie register thereof; hence Be- 
nevolence prompt to crucify farther infliction. The landscapes 
surveyed were beautiful ; though it may be said of the eminences, 
as Mr. William Lackaday observes in the play, of his boy-seen 
uplands : ' Them there hills was n't clothed with much werder.' 



How many steam-boat accidents are occurring constantly ! 
One of late astonished the peaceful Delaware. But it did one 
good act. The explosion blew away a piece of very bad ortho- 
graphy in the cabin of one of those craft which ply between Phil- 
adelphia and Camden. Perilous voyages do they make, indeed. 
Nurses with their blooming charges, and who have never been 
to sea, embark in them to behold the wonders of the deep ! The 
disaster I speak of arose from that which made the angels fall. 
'T was curst ambition. One boat was going several inches ahead of 
another, and urged its engine to the rate of at least fifty miles the 
hour. Rivalry was awakened ; the captain of the hapless craft 
yelled to his assistant : ' Josey, we '11 have a race with that t'other 
imperent boat ! Fut that other stick of wood into the furnace ! 
My pride is elewated. Never mind the expense this time !' 

The command was given ; the boiler collapsed ; and ambition 
was ended ! The orthography blown from the steamer was 
this : 

' P^o smoking aloud in the cabing !' 

This was an injunction obeyed per force, for it could not be 
broken.* It specified tacit fumigation : 

'Nothing could live 

Twixt that and silence ;' 

and the unnecessary monition was no great loss, either to luxury 
or learning. 

Let me here register a letter which I have received from the 

• Apropos of this 'supererogatory and adscititious' prohibition. The small 
steamers which ply on the beautiful Connecticut, above the ancient fortification 
of < Goed Hoop,' renowned in Knickerbocker's veracious history, and now 
known as ' Dutch Point,' have but one paddle-wheel, which is placed some six or 
eight feet astern. The voyager in these petty craft is forcibly struck with the 
necessity of obeying a printed order, conspicuously posted : 'No smoking abaft the 
wheel ." And those who watch from the shore the locomotive column of spray, 
(like the ' pillar of cloud by day' that concealed the Israelites,) which hides the 
boat from view, on its upward passage, must also be of opinion that his • pipe* 
would be soon ' put out,' who should attempt to smoke in so moist a region. 

16 



226 OLLAPODIANA. 

Jehu who voted for Smith, of SmithopoUs. He conveys several 
curious sentiments ; and among other matters, records the demise 
of the person to whom he was indebted for a lecture : 

» My Dear Sir : 'November the 5th, 1837. 

' I have seen a piece which you made and put into a perryoge pubHshed 
down into the city of New York, to which I am a-going to indict a reply. 
My indictment will be short, as some of the parties is not present to which 
you have been allusive. But with respect of that there diwine person you 
spoke of, I am sorry to remark, that he is uncommonly dead, and wont 
never give no more lectures. He was so onfortnight as to bu'st a blood- 
vessel at a pertracted meeting ; and 1 ha n't hearn nothing onto him sence. 
His motives was probable good ; but in delivering on 'em, it struck me for- 
cibly that he proximoted to the sassy. However, I never reserves ill will, 
not ag'inst nobody ; and I authorize you to put this into printing, ef 'so be 
that you deem it useful. That's what Smith used to say, when he pub- 
lished his self-nominations in the newspapers, that a man with a horn (they 
tell me that he has a very large circle of kindred) used to ride post about, 
and distribit. 

' In the sincere congratulation that there has not nothing been said in 
this communication unproper for the public ear, and for giving you the de- 
scriptions of the rackets, and other messuages respecting me, which you 
deeded to the public, I remain yours until death do us part. 

' Mr. Ollapod, M. D.' ' Post Tillion. 

Now there is no finding fault with a correspondent of this de- 
scription. Plain, unadorned, he gives his thoughts the drapery 
of ink — dresses them in black — and there they stand, ('what is 
written remains,') evidences at once of his frankness and his eru- 
dition. To me, such documents, though light, and perhaps un- 
palatable to those who prefer the heavier condiments of literature, 
form the cream or the dessert of life's plenteous table. 



Talking of desserts — by which (whisper) I don't mean the 
boundless contiguity of western wildernesses, nor the sandy 
bounds of Zahara, but the after-glories of a dinner — I have of 
late arrived at some curious embellishments of delicacies, on the 
part of those who are bent upon improving the Enghsh language, 
at all hazards ; upon extending it to the utmost latitude of dainty 
expression and culture. The Astor House, I learn, at its La- 
dies' Ordinary, has furnished forth some glorious specimens of 
English improved. ' Sir,' said an exquisite, desirous of parta- 
king a certain delicacy for himself and his fair : 

* Have you at present any of the chastised idiot-brother ?' 

' Ha n't seen no relations of your 'n here to-day,' murmured 
the waiter, 'with an imperturbable and 'furtive' smile.' 

' Don't be impertinent, fellow !' was the reply ; ' I mean some- 
thing to eat !' 

'If you want to eat anything in the idiot line,' replied the ser- 



OLLAPODIANA. 227 

vant, aside, as his inquisitor fingered his mustache, ' I guess 
you 'd better put some butter on your hair, and swallow yourself'^ 
And here the sacrilegious usher of sauces and glasses indulged 
in a half-suppressed guffaw. 

' Dar' say you consider that funny, my short help,'' said the 
inquirer ; ' but what I want is what you call whipped-syllahuh. 
Heaven help your ignorance !' 

The requisite was handed — the exquisite appeased. But. his 
quiet was brief. Calling to him the same locomotive assistance, 
he inquired : 

' Now, individual, I want some sacrificed-threshed-indigent-wil- 
liams. Have you got any V 

' Not one, upon my soul, your honor ; that is, if you mean 
turnips.' 

' Turnips ! curse turnips ! you double-distilled Vandal ; you 
Goth — you Visigoth ! I mean, have you got any roasted whip- 
poor-wills V 

' Holy Paul !' said a Hibernian ' help,' who had drawn anigh, 
attracted by the discussion ; ' in the name of the Virgin, what is 
them V 

Just at this juncture, the eaves-dropping by-stander who fur- 
nishes the mem. of this, came away, leaving the emerald son — 
more verdant to look at than his native isle — starins: as if in a fit 
of astronomy, in eclipse-time. 



One of my autumnal recreations, good my reader, is hunting. 
I pull a most fatal trigger. Venerie delighteth me, when the day 
is good and the game abundant. I love (Heaven forgive me !) to 
bring down the squirrel, with the half-munched chestnut in his teeth, 
what time his bushy tail, no longer waving in triumph over his 
back, as he bounds from limb to limb, quivers in articulo mortis. 
I confess me none of your cockney venators. Some of these 
I have seen place the deadly muzzle of a double-barrel rifle at 
the unsuspecting tail of a wren, while the proximity of metal and 
feathers was less than an inch ; and when they fired, they plung- 
ed back some several yards, overcome with horror, though the 
bird had flown without injury, save indeed some blackened 
down, in extremis ; a trifle, with life safe, and the world before 
her. 

The poetry of gunpowder is in making it tell. To go out when 
the woods are so beautiful that you deem a score of dying dol- 
phins hang on every tree, 

• When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still. 
And twinkle in ihe smoky light the waters of the rill;' 



228 OLLAPODIANA. 

to hear the deUcate tread of the game on the leaves, rustling amid 
the murmurs of solemn winds, as the westering sun scampers 
down the west, with a face as red as if he had disgraced the solar 
family by some misdemeanor ; and then, in some thick recess of 
passing foliage, and innumerous boughs, then and there to bore 
winged fowl, and my gentleman quadrupeds of the sylvan fast- 
ness, with cold lead, is exhilarating. All kinds of volant things 
that wing the autumn air ; all sorts of movers on four legs ; to 
make these succumb to the behests of minerals, deadly salts, and 
a percussion cap to set them on, is a kind of great glory in a very 
small way. I miss in my excursions of this nature, the kind of 
sport which I fancy they who course the fields and glades of 
England must peculiarly enjoy ; hare-hunting, namely. ' The 
ancients,' saith my choice ' Elia,' ' must have loved hares. Else 
why adopt the word lepores, (obviously from lejnis,) but from 
some subtle analogy between the delicate flavor of the latter, and 
the finer relishes of wit in what we most poorly translate pleas- 
antries. The fine madnesses of the poet are the very decoction 
of his diet. Thence is he hare-brained. Haram-scarum is a 
libellous, unfounded phrase, of modern usage. 'Tis true the 
hare is the most circumspect of animals, sleeping with her eyes 
open. Her ears, ever erect, keep them in that wholesome exer- 
cise, which conduces them to form the very tit-bit of the admirers 
of this noble animal. Noble will I call her, in spite of her de- 
tractors, who from occasional demonstrations of the principle of 
self-preservation (common to animals,) infer in her a defect of 
heroism. Half a hundred horsemen, with thrice the number of 
dogs, scour the country in pursuit of puss, across three counties; 
and because the well-flavored beast, weighing the odds, is vnlling 
to evade the hue and cry, with her delicate cars shrinking per- 
chance from discord, comes the grave naturalist, Linnaeus, per- 
chance, or BufFon, and gravely sets down the hare as — a timid 
animal. Why, Achilles, or Bully Dawson, would have declined 
the preposterous combat!' This is speaking sooth, and vindi- 
cates the fame of that class of tremulous tenants of rural haunts, 
whose ears, most unhappily, are sometimes longer than their lives. 



Sometimes I surmount my pony, and traverse for miles the 
banks of the Schuykill ; moving, now fast, now slow, as humor 
prompts, or clouds portend. The city fades behind me ; the 
beautiful eminence of Fairmount, its spouting fountains, its stat- 
ues in the many-colored shade ; the sheen of the river ; the trel- 
ised pavilions that hang on its side ; the hum of waters, or the 
cheerings of some regatta, mingle with far obscurity and airy 



OLLAPODIANA, 229 

nothing ; and then, as I ride, I sing the song of Anacreon Little, 
laying every tone to my heart, hke a treasure and a spell : 

'Along the Schuykill a wanderer was roving. 
And dear were its flowery banks to his eye ; 
(I am bounding along — at a good rate am moving — 
I have lost the last lines — unregained, if I try.') 

Thus I murder the post-meridian hours, when the weather-office 
is propitious, and its clerks attentive. 



By-the-way, how often have I pondered on the extreme sur- 
prise experienced by Balaam, of Old Testament memory, when he 
rode out one day on business. His meditations were most unex- 
pectedly interrupted by the beast he rode ; and he was immense- 
ly astounded, when he found out the garrulity of the animal. 
True to her sex, (for she was of the tender gender,) she com- 
menced a few sentences 'of small-talk, greatly to his dismay. 
And who could marvel ? What man but would listen, auribns 
erectis, when he ascertained that his own ass was opening a con- 
versation with him ? 'T v/as thus with Balaam. He was well 
nigh demented. He pommelled his beast with great vehemence; 
but she turned her head to him, and said in the Hebrew dialect: 
'No GoP 

Is it not wonderful, that those who are skilled in biblical his- 
tory, who weigh evidence by the ounce, and inference by the 
pound, is it not a marvel, that they have never traced the obsti- 
nacy of this four-footed individual to the right motives ? She 
was, in sooth, the great progenitress oi Animal Magiietism ; and 
she presented, in her own person, the first instance of clairvoyance 
on record, either in prose or rhyme. It was at her hinder feet 
that Mesmer sat, in thought, and caught the inspiration of his 
science. Balaam sat on her patient back, burdened her hal- 
lowed vertebras, nor knew how much wisdom he bestrode. 
Blinded mortal ! He looked ahead for the cause of his deten- 
tion. He saw no reason why he should not push on ; and in 
the Egyptian obliquity of his heart, he ' whaled' his ass to a de- 
gree. It did no good ; on the contrary, 't was quite the reverse. 
The ass and the angel were looking steadfastly at each other ; 
but Balaam saw but one of the parties. He noted not the glit- 
tering and glorious obstacle that stopped the narrow way. The 
loose and expressionless lips of his ass spoke like a book ; the 
clairvoyance was established ; but the effect was slow. Hence- 
forth, when the magnetic science is discussed, honor its foundress. 
Render unto that ass the things which are asses*. 



230 OLLAPODIANA. 

I HAVE achieved a victory which should fire the heart of any- 
tasteful bibUomaniac. I stand seized of Lamh. Understand me, 
reader, t' is no juvenile mutton, whereof I am possessed ; not 
adolescent merino, or embryo ram. By no manner of means ; 
contrariwise, it is Talfourd's brief memoir, and a most succu- 
lent correspondence, by the author of ' Elia.' 'T is a thing 
over which a father may waken his boy, in the small hours of the 
morning, (being yet unmoved bedward,) by a multitudinous guf- 
faw. Rosy slumber, ruptured by obstreperous laughter ; but ah ! 
how decidedly unavoidable ! 

Yes ; I write myself proprietor for the nonce of a London 
edition. My name is written in a Book of the Life of Lamb. 
Most hugeously do I relish his quaint conceits, and those dainty 
sentences, the fashioning whereof came to him unbidden, from 
spirits of the olden time, bending from the clouds of fame. (By- 
the-by, what an unconscionable dog was Ossian ! He always 
kept a score or two of heroes, sitting half-dressed on cold clouds, 
making speeches. 'T was most unkind of him. But he lived 
in a rude age.) Lamb was one of those precious few of whom 
the world is not worthy. He wrote from the impulses of a noble 
heart, guided to new expression by a mind clear as the brook of 
Siloa, that flowed by the oracles of God. He was not one of 
your persons who are dignified by the phrase ' all heart,' for he 
had a prolific brain, which all-hearted people generally lack. Of 
course, he disciplined himself betwixt a desk at the India-House, 
and his social hours, or studious ; but what golden fruitage sprang 
therefrom ! None of your crude sentences, half formed, unlicked, 
unpolished ; but full of meaning ; succinct to the eye, and har- 
monious to the ear. There is a light from his pen, which can 
illumine the saddest hour. He went forth to amuse and en- 
lighten, as the sun gets up in the morning to cheer the world, 
' with all his fires and travelling glories round him.' Essayist in- 
comparable ! How would he have looked writing a prize-tale 
for the horror-mongers ! 



In respect of these latter things, how many double-distilled 
atrocities of that kind are now and then committed at this day I 
They must be filled with blood and murder ; piracy, thieving, vil- 
lany of all sorts must be thrown in, to make the mixture ' slab 
and good ' This is the result of the ten thousand pages of trash, 
which the want of a copy-right lavi^ entails upon us from Eng- 
land. Improbability is the first ingredient, to which assassina- 
tion, seduction, and all kinds of crime, must approximate. Let 
me give a specimen : 



OLLAPODl AN A. 231 

•the fatal vow. 

•It was late in the fall of 18 , (convenient blank !) when, as the night 

had come on, on a stormy evening, a dreadful tempest arose in the west. 
The lightning flashed, the thunder faintly bellowed for a time ; but soon the 
lightning discontinued, though the thunder moaned on. It was pitch dark- 
darkness Egyptian. The sight was jjalsied and checked within an inch of 
the eye. At this juncture, two men on horseback might have been seen, at 

the distance of half a mile from the river , riding through a thick wood. 

One of them was of sallow complexion, with huge black whiskers ; he rode 
a horse of the color called by rural people ' pumpkin-and-milk,' or cream- 
color, rather. In his holster were two pistols. He wore a broad slouching 
hat, apparently unpaid for. A frown, blacker considerably than hell, dark- 
ened his brow. Turning to his companion, a weazen-faced man, with a red 
head, mounted on what is called a ' calico mare,' he said : 

' Well, Jakarzil, shall we do the deed to-night ?' 

' It would ill befit the noble Count d'Urzillio de Belleville,' said the de- 
pendant, ' to shoot that ill-fated lady at the present time. It would not 
look well.' 

* I care not for the looks !' rephed the count, curling his lip, and placing 
in his sinister cheek a piece of tobacco, ' I must have vengeance ! If the 
candle is not at the casement, I shall bu'st the door. I want revenge !' 

'TO BE CONTINUED.' 

This is like the modern tales. Meditated butchery, success- 
ful scoundrehsm, and other delectables, make up their sum. As 
the fragment just read may never be concluded, I will mention 
the fate of the parties. The hero shot his grandmother out of 
"pique, and was hung ; Jakarzil, his man, is in the penitentiary 
for horse-stealing. 

Some of my unpoetical friends think I have underrated the 
Falls at Kaatskill. Heaven save the mark ! They have never 
seen Niagara, and are therefore content with a few grim rocks, 
the gate of a mill-dam, and grandeur by the gallon ; for thus, 
in a manner, is it sold. No ! Let these untra veiled but clever 
fellows once hear the roar that shakes Goat-Island, and the re- 
gion round about ; see the river that pours its mile-wide breakers 
down, and mark the rainbow smile ! Ever thereafter will they 
hold their peace. 

One or two credulous persons have fancied that the sketch of 
* Smith of Smhhopolis' was designed as an imputation upon the 
name. The said imputation is disdained, by these presents. I 
have a decided regard for that style and title : companionship, 
familiarity, personal knowledge, (so grateful to the inquiring 
mind,) are its synonyms. Beside, I honor the name, for sundry 
associations. Who has never rode in a rail-car, a steam-boat, or 
a coach, with a person of the name of Smith ? Or heard him 



232 OLLAPODIANA. 

speak at a public meeting ? Or owed him a trifle ? Or had a 
trifle due from him, the Smith aforesaid ? Nemo — ' I undertake 
to say' — (in fact I not only undertake this vocal enterprise, but I 
accoinplish it.) Aside, reader, 't is a criticism on the phrase ; 
which whoso uses when he knows what he is about to set down 
in palpable chirography, is a sumph unqualified : Anglice, one 
of the flat 'uns, named of Stulti. 

The Smiths are numerous, 't is said. Grant it. Who pays 
more post-office revenue ? Who more quickly resents a jeer 
upon the name ? Tell me that. ' Not Nobody.' Would you 
look for heroes ? The Smiths could supply them. For female 
goodness and devotion ? The same, from the same. For wit, 
genius, and elevated talent ? Vide Horace and James, of the 
Addresses, and Richard Penn ; .the studious scholar, good law- 
yer, quaint citizen, novelist, poet, dramatist — everything clever. 



I HAD many more things to say, courteous reader ; but I fear, 
from what I have written, you may augur a bore. Heaven for- 
fend ! Consequently, thine in conclusion, I write myself, hence- 
forth, now, and formerly, Ollapod. 



NUMBER TWENTY. TWO. 

March, 1838. 

A MONTH Reader, or two months, how fast they get by! 
How they *push along and keep moving!' With their 'por- 
tance to the prince or the beggar — to the monarch or the mau~ 
vais snjet — they sweep away. When one is at his ease, and in 
quiet, how imperceptibly they glide ! When friends are looked 
for, or home is nearing on the wave, how melancholy slow ! 
Time ambles, canters, trots, walks, or halts, as it were, with 
thousands at a time. Those who wish his gait the tardiest, me- 
thinks, are those who take their ' last stand' upon a scaffold, and 
await that dubious moment which divorces Spectacle from Stran- 
gulation. That is a period of which one cannot complain that it 
is dull. Like passages in modern novels, (as per booksellers' 
advertisements) it is of ♦ thrilling interest.' The only passenger 
in the black coach just bound for the unknown country waits with 
exemplary patience for the driver, not willing to leave. Right in 
his premises, he comes to a wrong conclusion. His neck answers 
for it. 



OLLAPODIANA. 233 

Since I read that curious piece of ' Elia's on the splendors 
of the pillory rather than its disgraces, I have had some little 
curiousness to meditate on that matter ; whether it were possible 
that one should felicitate himself on a position of the kind ; 
whether pride could be born of pillory conceptions, or thoughts 
of grandeur from the gallow-tree. I think they can. 'Twas a 
proud remark of the Earl Ferrers, when on his way to the gal- 
lows, in 1796, when he observed to his sheriff, who compliment- 
ed him upon attracting so great a concourse of people : ' I sup- 
pose they never saw a lord hanged before.' This incident should 
be used by some play-wright of modern times, and entitled ' The 
Earl's Last Chuckle.' This same lord, on the day fixed for his 
execution, was driven to the gallows in his own landau, dressed 
in sumptuous garments, the choicest of his taste. Those who 
demur from gibbet dignity, should have heard the courteous col- 
loquies which did ensue betwixt him and his sheriff aforesaid. 
The latter, * seating himself by his lordship, politely observed, 
that it gave him the highest concern to wait upon him on so mel- 
ancholy an occasion : adding, that he would do every thing in 
his power to render his situation as agreeable as possible, and 
hoped his lordship would impute it to the necessary discharge 
of his duty.' 

There are objects of great interest, too, one might suppose, on 
a scaffold, as well as in the pillory. Par example, in the case 
in question. ' His lordship (by mistake) gave ten guineas to the 
executioner's assistant, which was immediately after demanded 
by the master ; but the fellow refused to deliver it, and a dispute 
ensued, which might have discomposed his lordship.' 

Of course it might. Perhaps he had been a sporting character. 
Would he not have felt some anxiety to settle the controversy, 
and see fair play before he went, so as to die in peace ? Indubi- 
tably. He should have been ' spared that sight' — but /ie was 
spared, before it ended. 

Well — as there is nothing too low to be dignified by some 
faint coloring, so there is naught too high not to be dimmed. I 
look upon the moon as an orb of pearly lusture ; upon the stars 
as diamonds and jewels ; yet ragged clouds, hke volant pauper's 
breeches, patched with yellow, red, or white, around their edges, 
sail by the stars, and moon, and sun, smirching their beauty, and 
borrowing brightness not their own. 

Yet I respect the moon. Fair politician ! She changes when 
she will. Impartial dispenser of radiance ' on tick ;' she gets 
what she can, and gives all she gets. I honor the planet. Pro- 



234 OLLAPODIANA. 

lific mother of hoaxes and sentiment ! Grand cloud silver-plater ! 
Meek, virtuous Eminence — Presence serene! Thus wert thou 
once apostrophized, by one now no more : 

O MOO!^ ! at midnight's contemplative hour, 
When placid slumber holds his noiseless reign, 
Throbs my exulting heart to see thee shower 
Thy streaming splendors upon rock and plain : 
From earth aloof my panting spirits soars, 
Communing with revolving worlds on high, 
Till, lost in deep amazement, forth it pours 
Its hymn of praise to Him who lit yon sky, 
^nd gave to my young gaze this wondrous scenery ! 

O moon ! aside the helmsman lays his chart, 
To mark thy beams reflected on the sea ; 
And faithful mem'ry on his lonely heart 
Gives back the light of childhood's revelry. 
On his lone pathway may the auspicious gale 
Propel the expanded canvass o'er the wave : 
Bright be the cynosure which lights his sail- 
Nigh be the mighty arm outstretched to save, 
"When the blue waves run high, the sea boy from the grave ! 

O moon! the sentinel at midnight hour 
Rests the dark vigil of his eye on thee, 
A.nd pours his benison to that high power 
Who dressed for him that gorgeous scenery : 
While the bright beams their softer splendors wake, 
And on his burnished casque and armor play, 
He hears not the light footstep in yon brake ; 
His thoughts have wandered to his home away — 
His wife and infant boy — are their young bosoms gay ? 

O moon! on thee at the lone hour of night 
The lover gazes with a swimming eye ! 
And deems that she to whom his heart is plight, 
Gazes as fondly on yon glorious sky : 
Anon his ardent fancy seems to trace. 
In the bright mirror of night's lonely hour, 
'The light of love, the purity of grace,' 
Which charmed his youthful eye in summer's bower, 
When to his heart he pressed his bosom's dearest flower. 

Again he deems, in fancy's wanton flight, 
Some bark of pearl in beauty sailing there : 
Slow piloting its dubious path in light, 
Through the calm ocean of the evening air ! 
Oh ! how his bosom burns to tempt the gale, 
With his own loved one, on that azure sea ; 
With hope's soft zephyr to impel the sail. 
And no obtrusive, daring eye to see 
His own endeared caress and love's warm witchery. 

J. R. SuTXBMXttTSB. 



OLLAPODIANA. 236 

'TwAS a new idea to me, that conveyed of late by the author 
of Leslie, surnamed Norman, that the only things you see, after 
crossing the Atlantic, which you have seen before, are the orb 
of day, sometimes vulgarly called Phoebus, or the sun, the chaste 
Regent of the Night, or Luna, that green-horns sometimes de- 
nominate the moon, and those jewels of heaven — ' doubloons of 
the celestial bank,' as a Spanish poet calls them — sometimes 
named stars, by plain, uninitiated persons. These, it seems, are 
the only old acquaintances a man meets abroad. They are not 
to be put by. A man may curse his stars, indeed, but he can- 
not cut them. As well might the great sea essay ' to cast its 
waters on the burning Bear, and quench the guards of the ever- 
fixed pole.' Therefore shall I learn henceforth yet more to love 
those dazzling planets, fixed or errant, because in no long time I 
may meet them in Philippi. Precious then to me will be their 
bright companionship ! Milky feeUngs will come over me, as 
I scrutinize the via lactea, with upturned eyes ; conscious will 
be the moon ; inexpressibly dear every glimpse of the lesser 
lights that rule the night with modest fires. Without the slight- 
est premonitory symptoms of astrology, and being withal no 
horologe consulter, I yet do love the stars. Rich, rare, and lus- 
trous, they win my gaze, and look into my soul. I have seen 
them at Niagara, gUnting upon the mad breakers through the 
lunar rainbow, with their perpetual flashes ; on the big lakes of 
the interior, as if the calm waters were but another sky ; on the 
placid Schuylkill, when the breath of clover-fields came fresh- 
ened from the wave it never wrinkled; and I have seen them — 
oh climax of beauty ! — on the ' Grand Erie Canawl,^ just before 
taking a berth in copartnership with bed-bugs ! Enough of stars. 
I am waxing theatrical. 



One word more, though, before I dismiss these luminaries. 
That verse of Byron's, wherein he compares the object of some 
early affection to a star, dropping from its sphere, always struck 
me as peculiarly beautiful. Look at it, reader, and say so too : 

• I KNOW not if I could have borne 

To see thy beauty fade; 
The night that followed such a mom, 

Had worn a deeper shade. 
And thou wert lovely to the last — 
Thy day without a cloud hath past, 

Extinguished — not decayed; 
As stars, tliat shoot along the sky. 

Shine brightest, when they fall from high.' 



236 OLLAPODIANA. 

The same individual — who was a highly nice person for 
making apt pieces of metre out of his head — has, in the hand- 
somest manner, volunteered his services for the moon, at the 
close of the following passage : 

' I DO remember me, that on a night Hke this, 
I stood beneath the Coliseum's wall 
Mid the chief relics of almighty Rome: 
The trees that grew along the broken arches, 
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars 
Shone through the rents of ruin: from afar 
The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber, and more near. 
From out the Csesar's palace, came the owl's long cry. 
And interruptedly of distant sentinels the fitful song, 
Begun and died upon the gentle wind. 
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon! upon all this 
And cast a wide and tender light, which softened down 
The hoar austerity of rugged desolation, 
Leaving that beautiful which still was so. 
And making that which was not, till the place 
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er 
In silent worship.' 



One cannot write, by any possibility, with a sense of pleasure, 
when his subject brings too many things to his recollection, and 
pours remembrance full upon the eye. I love to go back to the 
moon-light eves of other years ; and I do confess, that the shim- 
mer of a star over a city chimney ; the rustle of vines in its garden 
walks ; or the soft hum of a summer shower at night, tinkling on 
a thousand shadowy roofs around, and gurgling down the con- 
duits of the eaves — those regular eaves-droppers — can awaken 
in me a multitude of pleasant thoughts, which lie too deep for 
tears. Unanswered aspirations come before me with their solem- 
nities, and I hold a deeper communion with my Maker. Some 
soft instrument of music, touched by a fair hand, in the nocturnal 
liours, adds to the quietude, and I thank that Spirit for its spell, 
in hurried numbers : 

When the worn heart its early dream 

In darkness and in vain pursues. 
How shall the visionary gleam 

Of joy o'er life its charm diffuse? 
How shall the glowing thought aspire, 

The cheek with passion's flush be warm, 
Or the dim eyes resume their fire. 

Their sunshine, victory of the storm ? 

Ah, who can tell ? Not thou, whose words 
Are lightest, liveliest of the throng ; 

Whose carol, like the summer bird's, 
Pours out the winning soul of song; 



OLLAPODIANA. 237 

Not thou, whose calm and shining brow, 

The sadness of thy strain behes ; ^ 

Whose spirits, like thy music, flow, 
Won from the founts of Paradise ! 

By-the-by, the first individual from whom I ever heard an 
amatory effusion, was an immense arrangement of flesh and 
blood — a milliner, from Yorkshire, in England. She had come 
from home, with her large fat face, with all the bloom on, and 
with big watery eyes. How she would flatter herself that she 
was enchanting the students, as, in quizzing convocations, they 
invited her at green-horn parties, (after a turn at Blind Man's 
BufF, or some such highly intellectual game,) to sing ' Oh 'tis 
Love — 'tis Love!' Her stupendous chest seemed to expand 
with the tender passion ; and oh — ears, that were searched with 
the volume of her notes, attest the fact — how she tortured the 
attentive tympanum ! In form, as I have said, she was immense; 
a John Reeve in petticoats, and not unlike that most fantastic 
Cupid. Gentle Giantess ! Many years have passed, since she 
chaunted to those roystering ' Academy boys !' If she yet live, 
she might say ' Here .'' to Elia's description of her whilome Ox- 
ford counterpart: 'There may be her parallel upon the earth, but 
surely I never saw it. I take her to be lineally descended from 
the maid's aunt of Brainford, who caused Master Ford such un- 
easiness. She hath Atlantean shoulders ; and, as she stoopeth 
in her gait — with as few offences to answer for in her own par- 
ticular as any of Eve's daughters — her back seems broad enough 
to bear the blame of all the peccadillos that have been committed 
since Adam. She girdeth her waist, or what she is pleased to 
esteem as such, nearly up to her shoulders, from beneath which, 
that huge dorsal expanse, in mountainous declivity, emergeth. 
Respect for her alone preventeth the idle boys, who follow her 
about in shoals, whenever she cometh abroad, from getting up and 
riding. But her presence infallibly commands a reverence. She 
IS indeed, as the Americans would express it, something awful. 
Her person is a burthen to herself, no less than the ground which 
bears her. To her mighty bone, she hath a pinguitude withal, 
which makes the depth of winter to her the most desirable season. 
Her distress in the warmer solstice is pitiable. During the 
months of July and August, she usually renteth a cool cellar, 
where ices are kept, whereinto she descendeth when Sirius rageth. 
She dates from a hot Thursday — some twenty-five years ago. 
Her apartment in summer is pervious to the four winds. Two 
doors in north and south direction, and two windows fronting the 
rising and the setting sun, never closed, from every cardinal point 



238 OLLAPODIANA. 

catch the contributory breezes. She loves to enjoy what she calls 
a quadruple draught. That must be a shrewd zephyr, that can 
escape her. I owe a painful face-ache, which oppresses me at 
this moment, to a cold caught, sitting by her, one day in last July, 
at this receipt of coolness. Her fan, in ordinary, resembleth a 
banner spread, which she keepeth continually on the alert to de- 
tect the least breeze. She possesseth an active and gadding 
mind, totally incommensurate with her person. No one delight- 
eth more than herself in country exercises and pastimes. I have 
passed many an agreeable holiday with her in her favorite park at 
Woodstock. She performs her part in these delightful ambula- 
tory excursions by the aid of a portable garden chair. She set- 
teth out with you at a fair foot gallop, which she keepeth up till 
you are both well breathed, and then she reposeth for a few 
seconds. Then she is up again for a hundred paces or so, and 
again resteth ; her movement, on these sprightly occasions, being 
something between walking and flying. Her great weight seem- 
eth to propel her forward, ostrich- fashion. In this kind of relieved 
marching, I have traversed with her many scores of acres on those 
well-wooded and well-watered domains. Her delight at Oxford 
is in the public walks and gardens, where, when the weather is 
not too oppressive, she passeth much of her valuable time. 
There is a bench at Maudlin, or rather, situated between the 
frontiers of that and Christ's college ; some litigation, latterly, 
about repairs, has vested the property of it finally in Christ's ; 
where at the hour of noon she is ordinarily to be found sitting, 
so she calls it by courtesy, but in fact, pressing and breaking of 
it down with her enormous settlement ; as both of those founda- 
tions, who, however, are good-natured enough to wink at it, have 
found, I believe, to their cost. Here she taketh the fresh air, 
principally at vacation times, when the walks are freest from in- 
terruption of the younger fry of students. Here she passeth her 
idle hours, not idly, but generally accompanied with a book ; 
blest if she can but intercept some resident Fellow, (as usually 
there are some of that brood left behind at these periods,) or stray 
Master of Arts, (to most of whom she is better known than their 
dinner bell,) with whom she may confer upon any curious topic 
of literature. 

Yet the burden of love and song, after all, hallows every thing 
it bends withal. Poetry is your true dignifier of the work-day 
world. In amber, your fly may go down balmy to other ages, 
that without that sweet consistence for an overcoat, shall smell to 
heaven from the shambles, -or be passed with a buzz of contempt 



OLLAPODIANA. 239 

by surviving friends of his race, of either gender, as they disport 
themselves, in impassioned union, on a warm summer pane. 
Even servitude may thus be embellished by song, and the hum- 
blest stations win the highest flights. Here followeth a strain to 
a waiter^s memory, well known to the denizens of Brotherly 
Love, in other hours — but now laid i' the earth, with all odors 
and honor. Some lines therein shall be seen italicized. 'Tis a 
work of mine, for which I crave the pardon of the friend from 
whose rare harp the numbers come : 

ODE TO BOGLE. 

DEDICATED, WITH PEKMISSION, AND A PIECE OF SDNT-STICK, TO META B , 

AGED FOUR YEAES. 

* Restituit rem cunctando.' — Eun. ap. Cicero. 
' Of Bro-wnis and of Bogilia ful is this buke.'— Gawin Dottolas. 

Bogle ! not he whose shadow flies 
Before a frighted Scotchman's eyes, 
But thou of Eighth near Sansom — thou 
Colorless color'd man, whose brow 
Unmoved the joys of life surveys, 
Untouched the gloom of death displays ; 
Reckless if joy or grief prevail, 
Stern, multifarious Bogle, hail ! 

Hail may'st thou Bogle, for thy reign 
Extends o'er nature's wide domain, 
Begins before our earhest breath. 
Nor ceases with the hour of death : 
Scarce seems the blushing maiden wed, 
Unless thy care the supper spread ; 
Half christened only were that boy. 
Whose heathen squalls our ears annoy. 
If, supper finished, cakes and wine 
Were given by any hand but thine ; 
And Christian burial e'en were scant, 
Unless his aid the Bogle grant. 
Lover of pomps ! the dead might rise, 
And feast upon himself his eyes, 
When marshalling the black array. 
Thou ruVst the sadness of the day ; 
Teaching how grief should be genteel. 
And legatees should seem to feel. 
Death's seneschal ! 'tis thine to trace 
For each his proper look and place. 
How aunts should weep, where uncles stand, 
With hostile cousins, hand in hand, 
Give matchless gloves, and fitly shape 
By length efface the length of crape. 
See him erect, with lofty tread. 
The dark scarf streaming from his head, 
Lead forth his groups in order meet, 



240 OLLAPODIANA. 

And range them, grief-ivise in the street ; 

Presiding o'er the solemn show, 

3%e very Chesterfield ofivo. 

Evil to him should bear the pall, 

Yet comes two late or not at all ; 

Wo to the mourner who shall stray 

One inch beyond the trim array ; 

Still worse, the kinsman who shall move, 

Until thy signal voice approve. 

Let widows, anxious to fulfil, 

(For the first time,) the dear man's will. 

Lovers and lawyers ill at ease, 

For bliss deferr'd, or loss of fees. 

Or heirs impatient of delay, 

Chafe inly at his formal stay ; 

The Bogle heeds not ; firm and true. 

Resolved to give the dead his due, 

No jot of honor will he bate. 

Nor stir towards the church-yard gate, 

Till the last parson is at hand. 

And every hat has got its band. 

Before his stride the town gives way — 

Beggars and belles confess his sway ; 

Drays, prudes, and sweeps, a startled mass. 

Rein up to let his cortege pass. 

And Death himself, that ceaseless dun, 

Who waits on all, yet waits /or none. 

Rebuked beneath his haughty tone. 

Scarce dares to call his life his own. 

Nor less, stupendous man ! thy power. 
In festal than in funeral hour. 
When gas and beauty's blended rays 
Set hearts and ball-rooms in a blaze ; 
Or spermaceti's light reveals 
More ' inward bruises^ than it heals ; 
In flames each belle her victim kills, 
And ' sparks Jly upivard' in quadrilles, 
Like iceberg in an Indian clime, 
Refreshing Bogle breathes sublime. 
Cool airs upon that sultry stream. 
From Roman punch or frosted cream 

So, sadly social, when we flee 
From milky talk and watery tea. 
To dance by inches in that strait 
Betwixt a side-board and a grate. 
With rug uplift, and blower tight, 
'Gainst that foul fire-fiend, anthracite. 
Then Bogle o'er the weary hours 
A world of sweets incessant showers, 
Till, blest relief from noise and foam. 
The farewell pound-cake warns us home 
Wide opes the crowd to let thee pass. 
And hail the music of thy glass. 



OLLAPODIANA. 24] 

Drowning all other sounds, e'en those 

From Bollman or Sigoigue that rose ; 

From Chapman's self some eye will stray ' 

To rival charms upon thy tray, 

Which thou dispenses! with an air. 

As life or death depended there. 

Wo for the luckless wretch, whose back 

Has stood against a window crack, 

And then impartial, cool'st in turn 

The youth xvhom love and Lehigh burn. 

On Johnson's smooth and placid mien 

A quaint and fitful smile is seen ; 

O'er Shepherd's pale romantic face, 

A radiant simper we may trace; 

But on the Bogle's steadfast cheek. 

Lugubrious thoughts their presence speak. 

His very smile, serenely stern. 

As lighted lachrymary urn. 

In church or state, in bower and hall, 

He gives with equal face to all : 

The wedding cake, the funeral crape, 

The mourning glove, the festal grape ; 

In the same tone when crowd's disperse, 

Calls Powell's hack, or Carter's hearse ; 

As gently grave, as sadly grim. 

At the quick waltz as funeral hymn. 

Thou social Fabius ! since the day. 
When Home was saved by wise delay. 
None else has found the happy chance, 
By always waiting, to advance. 
Let time and tide, coquettes so rude, 
Pass on, yet hope to be pursued. 
Thy gentler nature waits on all ; 
When parties rage, on thee they call, 
Who seek no office in the state. 
Content, while others push, to wait. 

Yet, (not till Providence bestowed 
On Adam's sons McAdam's road,) 
Unstumbling foot was rarely given 
To man nor beast when quickly driven ; 
And they do say, but this I doubt. 
For seldom he lets things leak out. 
They do say, ere the dances close. 
His too are ' light fantastic toes ;' 
Oh, if this be so, Bogle .' then 
How are we served by serving men . 
A waiter by his weight forsaken I 
An undertaker — overtaken ! 

L'ENVOI. 

Meta I tiiy riper years may know 
More of this world's fantastic show ; 
In thy time, as in mine, shall be, 
16 



S||I9|: OLLAPODIANA. 

Burials and pound-cake, beaux and tea ; 
Rooms shall be hot, and ices cold ; 
And flirts be both, as 't was of old ; 
Love, too, and mint-stick shall be made, 
Some dearly bought, some lightly weighed ; 
As true the hearts, the forms as fair, 
And equal joy and grace be there. 
The smile as bright, as soft the ogle, 
But never — never such a Bogle I 

One word in your ear, reader, before we part. The writer 
of the foregoing is a ' Monster.' If you would see his like, (in 
some men's opinion,) consult Homer, Milton, and Dante, ^cwsm. 
You shall not find, in all their pages, a monster of more note, or 
one that less deserves the name. He is a summer's morning 
monster, and wears the brighter as the calmness of the mid-day 
hours plays full upon him. I have given you a clue — resolve 
me my Riddle. 

Totally thine, Ollapod. 



NUMBER TWENTY-THREE. 

May, 1838. 

It is no long time, respected Reader, since we communed to- 
gether. Yet how many matters have happened since that period, 
which should give us pause, and solemn meditation ! We are 
still extant ; the beams of our spirit still shine from our eyes ; 
yet there are many who, since last my sentences came to yours, 
have drooped their lids for ever upon things of earth. Number- 
less ties have been severed ; numberless hearts rest from their 
pantings, and sleep, ' no more to fold the robe o'er secret pain.' 
All the deceits, the masks of Hfe, are ended with them. Poliaj 
no more bids them to kindle the eye with deceitful lustre ; no 
more prompts to semblance, which feeling condemns. They are 
gone ! — ' ashes to ashes, and dust to dust ;' and when I think of 
the numbers who thus pass away, I am pained within me ; for I 
know from them that our life is not only as a dream which pass- 
eth away, but that the garniture, or the carnival of it, is indeed a 
vapor, sun-gilt for a moment, then colored with the dun hues of 
death, or stretching its dim folds afar, until their remotest outlines 
catch the imperishable glory of eternity. Such is life ; made up 
of successful or successless accidents ; its movers and actors, 
from the cradle to three-score-and-ten, pushed about by Fate 



OLLAPODIANA. 243 

not their own ; aspiring but impotent ; impelled as by visions, 
and rapt in a dream — which who can dispel ? 

To THOSE who take every event in their lives as a matter of 
* special providence ;' who make a shop-keeper and supercargo 
of Omnipotence ; who refer to celestial interposition the recovery 
of a debt, the acknowledgment of a larceny, or the profits on a 
box of candles, or a bundle of ten-penny nails ; who perceive 
something more than a special providence in the death of a spar- 
row, or the fall of a brick-bat, sent from vagrant hand ; to those, 
all argument of reason would be useless, even if they who em- 
ployed it were warm and sincere, as I know I am, in a belief of 
the general watchfulness of my Creator over men's wo and weal. 
But, as in things that are of the earth earthy, there is but a step 
from the sublime to the ridiculous, as was said by the great cap- 
tain of his age, so it appears to me is it with things celestial. It 
seems impossible for the human intellect to appreciate that trifling 
ubiquity of supervision which some credulous persons, more de- 
vout than intelligent, impute to the supervision of the Almighty. 
That God is everywhere, admits of no dispute ; but when we 
ramify his discernments into the scrutiny of those minutest mat- 
ters which would scarcely attract for a moment the observation 
even of low-minded men, we create an anomaly which has, in 
proportion to its indifference, an aspect of frivolity, and an atti- 
tude of common-place. It seems to establish or defend that 
theory, which pronounces that w^hatever is, is right. This is a 
phrase of Pope's, which in my humble opinion contains much 
more poetry than philosophy. To maintain that all which is, is 
right, does away, in my poor sense, with all true appreciation of 
rectitude and wrong. It nullifies the Decalogue. If the postu- 
late be true, why the tablets of the law, or that divine mountainous 
sermon ? What need of statues, or the jury of a man's peers ? 
Why arraign a man who abstracts the horse from his stable, with- 
out a ' by y'r leave' from the owner, or seduces a ram from tLe 
pasture, without clover or salt ? Why should penitentiaries be 
filled V Why Auburn or Sing-Sing hear the groans of the priso- 
ners ? If all that is, is right, these prisoners have but done their 
duty ; counterfeiting is but a pastime, though fruitful ; perjury is 
a species of verbal romance, sanctified by a kiss on calf or sheep- 
skin ; larceny and burglary, the acts of brief visitors who make 
strong afiachments ; and even murder itself, a modification o{ the 
code d/honneur — a kind of 'popping the question' in the great 
matter of the future ; sometimes put with lead to the aorta, or with 
steel to the jugular. 



244 OLLAPODIANA. 

But while I impugn the philosophy of Pope, in the phrase 
hereinbefore mentioned, let me not arraign his verse, or cast one 
doubtful shade upon the brightness of his thoughts, or the sweet 
harmony of his numbers. How often have their cadences satis- 
fied my ear, and enriched my mind ! In his Eloise, the actual, 
solemn swell of the music which distracted the nun betwixt the 
choice of Earth or Heaven, seems pouring from the strain. He 
brings to my mind those sunny seasons when my sense of har- 
mony, though less acute, was perhaps more rapturous, than now; 
when the rustle of leaves, the casual trills of summer birds, the 
chiming dance of waters, and the zephyrs, floating from the frag- 
rant south or balmy west, seemed to breathe of the concords, and 
herald the dulcet airs, of Paradise. Sometimes, in the jostling 
din and bustle of active life, I lose these harmonies for a litde 
season, and I feel oppressed with the spirit of discontent and 
complaining ; and could say within me, as do the Hebrews in 
their service of the morning of the ninth of Ab, lamenting the 
sweet bells lost from the priestly robes of Israel; the lost language 
of seers and poets, the ephod, and the memorials, ' The voice 
of wailing hath passed over my melodious psalteries ; wo is me !' 

Is there any poetry equal in severe simplicity, and quiet 
natural beauty, to that of the Hebrews of Israel ? I confess that 
I think not. In his inspired v/anderings, I can conceive that 
Shakspeare walked as it were arm-in-arm with Moses and the 
prophets ; with that complaining man of Uz, who held colloquies 
with the Almighty, in whirlwind and storm. In truth, as I have 
pored over som.e of the beautiful inspirations of the Dispersed of 
modern days, they come to my spirit like ' the airs of Palestine.' 
Indeed, I have had great doubts, whenas I have overlooked the 
pages which have been lent me by a Rabbi of the Synagogue, 
written on one page with mysterious characters, and on the other 
with the pure English version of those venerated Scriptures, 
whether the renderings of Yarchi and Leeser, and others, were 
not more beautiful than those which have given to us the Word, 
from the sovereign command of the First James of England. 
Let us hst the following, as read in the Fast of the ninth of Ab. 
■ The lot of the Lord's inheritance is Jacob. He encircled him, 
and he watched him, and he guarded him as the apple of his eye. 
As an eagle stirreth np her nest, jiuttcreth her young, spreadeth 
abroad her wing, taJceth them, hearcth them aloft o?i her pinionsy 
so the Lord did lead him.' And how eloquently do they com- 
plain ! ' Where,' they ask, in their deep and briefest language, 
* where is the residence of the Divine Glorv? the house of the 



OLLAPOBIANA. 245 

Levitic order, and their desk ? Where the glory of the faithful 
city? Where are the chiefs of thy schools, and where thy judges? 
Who arrange the answers to them ? — who ask concerning thy 
mysteries? Where are they icho ivalk in the jjaths of truth, en- 
lightened by the brightness of thy shiningT 

There is something extremely touching to me in these Israel- 
itish lamentations. They were wailed con amore, and by the 
card. I truly believe, that all the sackcloth poetry of modern 
time, put together, would give a mere dividend of the great capi- 
tal of dolor employed by the olden-time Hebrews. They wept 
and howled copiously, yea, abundantly. There is something, 
after all, sacred in sorrow. It has a dignity, which joy never 
possesses. The sufferings of Medea in Euripides ; the scenes 
betwixt Andromache and Hector ; the pangs of Virginius ; these 
are remembered, and will be, when the glittering treasures of 
Croesus at Delphi shall be forgotten, and the gay measures of 
Gyges be lost to men. Here is a strain in this kind ; one that 
was spent at the close of a summer day, some year or so agone. 
It needs a little preliminary blazon. 



You must know, reader, that there lieth, some three miles or 
sa from Brotherly Love — a city of this continent, a delectable 
city — a place of burial, 'Laurel Hill' by name. On a sweeter 
spot, the great sun never threw the day-spring of the morning, 
nor the blush of the evening West. There the odors and colors 
of nature profusely repose ; there, to rest of a spring or summer 
afternoon, on some rural seat, looking at trees, and dancing 
waters, and the like, you would wonder at that curious question 
addressed of Dean Swift, on his death-bed, to a friend at his side: 
' Did you ever know of any really good weather in this world ?' 
You would take the affirmative. Well, thus I sang : 

Here the lamented dead in dust shall lie, 

Life's lingering languors o'er — its labors done ; 

Where waving boughs, betwixt the earth and sky, 
Admit the farewell radiance of the sun. 

Here the long concourse from the murmuring town, 

With funeral pace and slow, shall enter in ; 
To lay the loved in tranquil silence down, 

No more to suffer, and no more to sin. 

And here the impressive stone, engraved with words 
Which Grief sententious gives to marble pale, 

Shall teach the heart, while waters, leaves, and birds 
Make cheerful music in the passing gale. 



246 OLLAPODIANA. 

Say, wherefore should we weep, and wherefore pour 

On scented airs the unavailing sigh — 
While sun-bright waves are quivering to the shore, 

And landscapes blooming — that the loved should die? 

There is an emblem in this peaceful scene : 

Soon, rainbow colors on the woods will fall ; 
And autumn gusts bereave the hills of green. 

As sinks the year to meet its cloudy pall. 

Then, cold and pale, in distant vistas round. 
Disrobed and tuneless, all the woods will stand; 

While the chained streams are silent as the ground, 
As Death had numbed them with his icy hand. 

Yet, when the warm soft winds shall rise in spring, 
Like struggling day-beams o'er a blasted heath, 

The bird returned shall poise her golden wing. 
And liberal nature break the spell of death. 

So, when the tomb's dull silence finds an end. 
The blessed Dead to endless youth shall rise ; 

And hear the archangel's thrilling summons blend 
Its tones with anthems from the upper skies. 

There shall the good of earth be found at last. 
Where dazzling streams and vernal fields expand; 

Where Love her crown attains — her trials past — 
And, filled with rapture, hails the better land ! 

Thus I Strummed the old harpsichord, from which I have 
aforetime, at drowsy hours and midnight intervals, extracted a 
few accidental numbers, (more pleasant doubtless to beget than 
read,) ' sleepless myself, to give to others sleep !' 



Well, that is the only way to write without fatigue, both to 
author and reader. In all that pertains to the petty businesses 
which bow us to the routine of this work-day world, I am as it 
were at home. I am distinctly a mover in the great tide of Ac- 
tion sweeping on around me ; yet when I enter into the sanc- 
tuary of the Muses, lo ! at one wave of the spiritual wand, this 
' dim and ignorant present' disappears. I breathe a rarer atmo- 
sphere. Visions of childhood throng upon my soul ; the blue 
mountain-tops ; the aerial circles of far-off landscapes ; the hazy 
horizon of ocean-waters ; the wind-tossed verdure of summer ; 
the hills that burst into singing ; and the sweet harmonies of na- 
ture — Universal Parent! — all appeal to my spirit. This dis- 
memberment of the ideal from the actual, is a fountain of enjoy- 
ment, which whoso knows not, has yet the brightest lessons of 
life to learn. He has yet to enter that fairy dominion which 
seems the intermediate territory betwixt the airy realms conceived 



OLLAPODIANA. 247 

of in this world, and the more radiant glories of that undiscovered 

country, 

' from whose bourne 

No traveller returns.' 

There is something in the feeling, beyond the impulses of 
fame, beyond the ' mouth honor, breath,' which the falsest of the 
world are the most ready to bestow ; something beyond the empty 
plaudits, the spurious honors, of the multitude, given to-day, 
withheld to-morrow. Anathemas a moment gone, benedictions 
now, these are the marks and signals of the multitude. I would 
not seek their favor, for their disapproval is the same in the end. 
It is a curious truth, that no man reahzes fame, until he is beyond, 
it ; that the tardy honors which men receive from kingly or from 
republican powers, generally come too late to be appreciated — 
or rather, too late to be of value. 



Yet there is something exceedingly solemn in the mutability 
of a name. 'T is indeed as a vapor, which appeareth but for a 
little season, and then vanisheth away. I like not this life-after- 
death repute, this post-mortem vitality. ' Give it to me, if I de- 
serve it, while the breath of existence sports in my nostrils ; 
while I can walk, and hear and see, and jostle among men !' 
Such are my aspirations, malgre the littleness of it. To have an- 
tiquaries puzzling themselves with one's merits, supposing that 
they might reach beyond his sepulture, is to my mind a dry and 
arid prospect. One wants to be quiet. ' To subsist in bones,' 
saith my old friend, Sir Thomas Browne, ' and to be but pyra- 
midally extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain ashes, which in 
the oblivion of Names, Persons, Times, and Sexes, have found 
unto themselves a fruitless continuation, and only arise unto late 
posterity, as emblems of mortal vanities, antidotes of pride. Ob- 
livion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory 
of men, without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but 
pity the founder of the pyramids ? Herostratus lives that burnt 
the temple of Diana ; he is almost lost that built it. Time hath 
spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse — confounded that of him- 
self. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our 
good names, since bad have equal durations ; and Thersites is 
is like to live as long as Agamemnon, without the favor of the 
Everlasting Register. The Canaanitish woman lives more hap- 
pily without a name, than Herodius with one ; and who had not 
rather have been the good thief than Pilate'? Who knows 
whether the best of men be known ? Or whether there be not 
more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered 
in the known accompt of time V These be puzzling queries. 



248 OLLAPODIANA. 

In our own country, methinks I can depaint the means and 
methods of posthumous fame. Here, if one who had attained to 
some eminence in his life-time, could awake fifty years after he 
had been quietly inurned, and be permitted to read the newspa- 
pers, he might find that a steamer of his name had burst her 
boiler ; ' a terrible accident, with loss of lives,' on river Missis- 
sippi or Ohio ; or mayhap that a horse, commemorating his cog- 
nomen, had been beaten at the Eagle or other course, with the 
particulars. Perhaps that he had devoted himself to posterity ; 
to be cited in other years as the source whence sanguinary mix- 
tures of renown had sprung; advertised in hand-bills ; and to aid, 
perhaps, in promoting to the legislature his owner, or guardian, 
or friend. This is fame, or a part of its mode of bestowment, 
here below. Fame! — a bet-word — a paragraph — sl feuille 
volante — a hand-bill. Thank the powers ! I have precious little 
thereof. And the most I would have, reader, is to write myself 
your friend, Ollapod. 



NUMBER ? 

October, 1839. 

Sitting down, good my reader, to write a few paragraphs, 
named of the above, I was sorely perplexed as to the number. '01- 

lapodiana:' Number what? By the mass, I could not tell; 

the time was so long ; my thoughts and subjects were a broken 
chain ; I seemed, indeed, to have but just returned from some 
other land, beyond the influence of days, and hours, and all those 
vile admeasurements of time, so rigidly observed by such as send 
Williams (bills, in the vulgate,) for services rendered in artisan 
line, and by banking institutions. Time seemed to have dissolv- 
ed all partnership with my vitality, and I was well nigh upon the 
point of exclaiming upon him, in the tone of honest Diccon, in 
Gammer Gurton's Needle : 



out upon thee, 



Above all other loutes, fye on thee !* 

But I checked the malediction. 'Out upon Time?' — no! 
Thou reverend softener of human sorrow ; thou who, throned 
upon the clouds of undiscovered fate, or with thy bright lock and 
thy insatiate weapon, enrobed in the sunshine of hope, and gay 
with that golden haze which plays above the distant vale of vernal 



OLLAPODIANA. 249 

Expectation ; no ! not out upon thee ! Friend to the wretched, 
thou shouldst be a woman, for men, in the profundity of their 
blundering, talk of events in thy ' womb ;' Great Unsexed, and 
yet evermore preserving in the primer thy masculine identity ; thy 
rather disreputable and misplaced queue ; and displaying in thy 
somewhat ancient physiognomy that desire of getting-ahead, so 
peculiar to thy respectful fellow-citizens, the American people. 
They speak of thee with respect, yet they take thee unceremo- 
niously ' by the forelock,' whether thy yellow hair floats on the 
eastern mountains, or thou tremblest at the gates of the West. 
Twin-brother of Eternity ! oh, why so taciturn to human hearts, 
whose yearning core would thrill with undying rapture, to hear 
the particulars of the doings and scenes in that vast country, the 
dim dominion of thy Great Relation ! 



Observe, my friend, I am not writing against XimQ ; so let us 
slowly on. My impressions of the old gendeman are sometimes 
extremely fantastic. I was looking, the other day at a playful 
young cat, just emerging from the fairy time of kittenhood ; some- 
thing between the revelry of the fine mewer, and the gravity with- 
out the experience of the tabby. Now one would think that no 
great subject for contemplation. It would be looked upon by the 
million as inferior to astronomy. But it is the connexion of the 
events having reference to the quadruped, which renders her of 
interest. Time will expand her person, increase her musical 
powers, and bring her admirers. In her back, on winter even- 
ings, will sleep a tolerable imitation of the lightnings of heaven. 
She will make great noise o' nights, and lap at interdicted cream. 
So much for her exterior — her love-passages and obstreperous 
concerts. But look within ! That compact embodiment of liga- 
ments and conduits, now treading gingerly over those fading 
leaves, and grapes of purple, what may they not be hereafter ? 
Whose hearts may they not thrill, when strung on the sonorous 
bridge of a cremona, guided to softest utterances by the master 
hand ? How many memories of youth, and hope, and fond 
thoughts, and sunny evenings, and bowers by moonlight, radiant 
with the beams of Cynthia, and v/arm with the sweet reflex of 
Beauty ; the heart, touched by the attempered entrail, rosin-en- 
compassed and bow-bestrid, may bound in age with recollections 
of departed rapture. And all from what? Smile not at the as- 
sociation, my friend — from Time and cat-gut. 



It is a pleasure to the bereaved, to think that time, which sad- 
ly overcometh all things, can alone restore the separated, and 



250 OLLAPODIANA. 

bring the mutually-loved together. Time, which plants the fur- 
row, and sows the seed of death, stands to the faithful spirit a 
messenger of light at that mysterious wicket-gate, from whence 
we step and enter upon the vast Unknown. Compare with this 
enlarged, this universe-embracing view, which breaks at once 
upon the soul, the act of laying down in what to some may seem 
a sleep of cold obstruction ; and where is the resemblance of the 
one, or what eye hath heard, or what heart conceived, of the in- 
finitude of the other : where the blooming immensity of a do- 
minion, beyond all realms enrolled of earth, spreads brightly to 
the sight, illumined for ever with the bountiful smile of the Giver 
of Good. 

Now there are some who do love marvellously to talk about 
the dainty glories of Spring. One of this sort is my friend Daf- 
fodilly. Daf. is a clever individual, with a heart as open as 
the day to the charities of life. But he turns up his nose at all 
the seasons, excepting Spring. The sight of an early flower in 
April makes his head a watering-pot. He is troubled with a 
kind of o-7-e£;2-sickness, and reads Thomson as though his like 
never was nor could be. He has the 'pink incense' always upon 
him. Summer he despises ; and Autumn, to him, is one scene of 
storm and gloom. Winter he associates with blue noses, crack- 
ed lips, and the absence of all feeling among men. ' But Spring !' 
he says, ' that opens the heart, that excites the sympathies of men 
and hens, and produces glory and goslings !' I verily believe 
that DafF. would listen with more delight by the side of a green 
frog-pond, to the swollen concert of its occupants, in spring-time, 
than to the sweetest opera in the world, I know his taste, and I 
know a glorious book* he has not read. Let me commend unto 
him this passage therein : ' In all climates, Spring is beautiful. 
In the South, it is intoxicating, and sets a poet beside himself. 
The birds begin to sing ; they utter a few rapturous notes, and 
then wait for an answer in the silent woods. Those green-coated 
musicians, the frogs, make a holiday in the neighboring marshes. 
They, too, belong to the orchestra of Nature ; whose vast theatre 
is again opened, though the doors have been so long bolted with 
icicles, and the scenery hung with snow and frost, like cobwebs. 
This is the prelude which announces the rising of the broad 
green curtain. Already the grass shoots forth. The waters leap 
with thrilling pulse through the veins of the earth ; the sap 
through the veins of the plants and trees ; and the blood through 

• Professor Longfellow's 'Hyperion.' 



OLLAPODIANA. 251 

the veins of man. What a thrill of dehght in spring-time ! What a 
joy in being and moving! Men are at work in gardens; and 'in 
the air there is an odor of the fresh earth. The leaf-buds begin to 
swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry hang upon the 
boughs like snow-flakes ; and ere long, our next-door neighbors 
will be completely hidden from us by the dense green foliage. The 
May-flowers open their soft blue eyes. Children are let loose in 
the fields and gardens. They hold buttercups under each other's 
chins, to see if they love butter. And the little girls adorn them- 
selves with chains and curls of dandelions ; pull out the yellow 
leaves to see if the school-boy loves them, and blow the down from 
the leafless stalk, to find out if their mothers want them at home. 
And at night so cloudless and so still ! JXot a voice of living 
tiling, not a whisper of leaf or waving bough, not a breath of 
wind, not a sound upon the earth nor in the air ! And over 
head bends the blue sky, dewy and soft, and radiant with innu- 
merable stars, like the inverted bell of some blue flower, sprin- 
kled with golden dust, and breathing fragrance. Or if the heav- 
ens are overcast, it is no wild storm of wind and rain ; but clouds 
that melt and fall in showers. One does not wish to sleep ; but 
lies awake to hear the pleasant sound of the dropping rain.' 

I MUST say, myself, that after we have done with June, the 
summer mislikes me. The sun becomes impertinent ; his choler 
increases, untill he is absolutely insufferable, and you fly from his 
presence. You can hunt small panting birds in the tvoods, then, 
if you have the heart, as they sit on the boughs, with their hot 
mouths open ; and great is the glory thereof. I once damaged 
the fedock of a wren in that way, from the end of a rusty musket, 
which kicked the hunter over ; and sent the entrails of a red 
squirrel, from the corner of a zig-zag fence, upon the rounda- 
bout of a traveller, who was journeying westward in a stage of 
the Telegraph line ; my venatory exploits being all within the 
compass of these. 

As I write, T can appreciate the autumn-feeling — something 
holy and peculiar — prevailing v/ithin me. I can see, by the in- 
creasing azure of the sky, by the enlarged clearness of the dis- 
tant landscapes, when the eye greets them from the city, and by 
the transparent briskness of the air at evening, that the summer 
has gone, and the autumn-time begun. The woodlands stand in 
calm solemnity, robed in that rainbow coloring, the herald of 
their fallen honors, and the November storm. At such a season, 
the heart goes back, as on wings of the dove, to departed friends, 



252 OLLAPODIANA. 

and vanished pleasures ; and the sad hours of memory come up 
in long review. 

The evening approaches. The clouds arise ; rain-drops pal- 
ter on the branches ; the winds are loud : the hours pass imper- 
ceptibly. I will write — and rest : 

'T is an autumnal eve — the low winds, sighing 

To wet leaves, nistling as they hasten by ; 
The eddying gusts to tossing boughs replying, 

And ebon darkness filling all the sky ; 
The moon, pale mistress, palled in solemn vapor, 

The rack, swift-wandering through the void above. 
As I, a dreamer by my lonely taper, 

Send back to faded hours the plaint of love. 

Blossoms of peace, once in my pathway springing. 

Where have your brightness and your splendor gone ? 
And Thou, whose voice to me came sweet as singing, 

What region holds thee in the vast Unknown 1 
What star far brighter than the rest contains thee. 

Beloved, departed — empress of my heart ! 
What bond of full beatitude enchains thee. 

In realms unveiled by pen, or prophet's art? 

Ah ! loved and lost ! in these autumnal hours. 

When fairy colors deck the painted tree. 
When the vast woodlands seem a sea of flowers. 

Oh! then my soul exulting bounds to thee ! 
Springs, as to clasp thee yet in this existence, 

Yet to behold thee at my lonely side : 
But4he fond vision melts at once to distance, 

And my sad heart gives echo — she has died ! 

Yes ! when the morning of her years was brightest. 

That Angei-presence into dust went down ; 
While yet with rosy dreams her rest was lightest, 

Death for the olive wove the cypress crown ; 
Sleep, which no waking knows, o'ercame her bosom, 

Overcame her large, bright, spiritual eyes ; 
Spared in her bower connubial one fair blossom — 

Then bore her spirit to the upper skies. 

There let me meet her, when, life's struggles over 

The pure in love and thought their faith renew : 
Where man's forgiving and redeeming Lover 

Spreads out his paradise to every view. 
Let the dim Autumn, with its leaves descending, 

Howl on the winter's verge — yet Spring will come: 
So my freed soul, no more 'gainst fate contending, 

With all it loveth, shall regain its home. 

No more, my reader — save only I am thine. C 



OLLAPODIANA. 253 



TWENTY. SIX. 

April, 1840. 



How do you bear yourself, my friend and reader, on the sub- 
ject of winter generally ? What are ' your views V If you are 
young and sanguine, with no revulsions or tempests of the heart 
to remember, I will warrant that you like old Hyem, and patron- 
ize that most windy individual, Boreas, of that ilk. Well,. you 
have a free right to your opinion, and if you held it two years or 
less ago, you had the honor to agree with me. But I confess on 
that point a kind of a warped idiosyncracy ; an unaccountable 
change of opinion. The truth is, reader, between you and me, 
there is not much dignity in winter, in a city. When, in the 
country, you can look out upon the far-off landscapes, the cold 
blue hills rising afar, and where a snow-bank is really what it is 
cracked up to be ; where the blast comes sounding to your 
dwelling over a sweep of woods, and lakes, and snowy fields, for 
miles of dim extension, there is some grandeur in the thing. But 
what is it to hear a blast, half choked with the smoke and soot 
of the city, wheezing down a contemptible chimney-pot, or round 
a corner, where the wind, that glorious emblem of freedom, has 
no charter at all to ' blow out' as he pleases, but is confined by 
the statute of brick-and-mortar restrictions ? 



I BEGIN to affect the softer seasons ; and I look with more 
than usual earnestness for the coming-on of Spring. I am not 
universal chronologist enough to know whether the creation be- 
gan in the spring, but I should suppose it did. If, when ' the 
morning stars sang together,' there was one out of tune ; one 
whose role was imperfect ; that belonged rather to the stock 
company of stars ; that took no part in the concert ; I apprehend 
it must have been one of those cold winter stars, that glister, and 
go through you, with their cold and unimpassioned blinking. I 
do not affect the ' dog star ;' but I must admit that the stars of 
spring, summer, and of autumn, are my favorites. Those of 
spring seem to tlirob with love, and light, and joy, that multi- 
tudes of flowers are springing, and that unnumbered sighs are 
breathing, in the world beneath ; as if indeed they knew and rel- 
ished the fact, that the roses and violets had again appeared on the 
earth ; that ' the time of the singing of the birds had come, and 
the voice of the turtle was heard in the land.' True, the sum- 
mer stars have rather too fervent a glitter ; they look down with 
a tropical kind of aspect, and induce one to go on the shady 
side of a street, even at evening, in order to avoid the intense 



254 OLLAPODIANA. 

heat of the moonshine. At such hours, one seems to have 
reached that point, mentioned in nautical phrase, which I trans- 
late for ears polite, where the first settlement beyond purgatory- 
is to be remunerated, and there is no tar to cancel the obligation. 
As for the autumn stars, they are to be praised in numbers ; not 
in a series, but in verse, as dazzling and pure as the light they 
dispense, and the thoughts they awaken. Whoever gazed at 
them, in their homes of blue infinity, without rapture and grati- 
tude? 

Talking of gratitude, reminds me of one of the most extraor- 
dinary developments of that quality, which I ever remember to 
have heard of any where. It occurred in a southern city ; where 
there did live a person, otherwise called an individual, who was 
considered one of the most parsimonious of all the tribe of Adam. 
He had gone for nearly fifteen years without the imbuing of his 
personal top, or apex, with a new hat. He was singularly irras- 
cible, owing to the fact that he peculiarly answered to the com- 
prehensive definition of man in general ; he was an irregular di- 
gestive tube, with the principle of immortality at his top, and 
pedal grain upon his understanding. Having worn his eter- 
nal ram-beaver into greasy desuetude, .he came to the conclusion 
to get a new one ; which he did — price twelve dollars. It was 
placed, in glossy youth, upon his hall-table ; the ' old hat,' as he 
called it only after he had got its successor, was removed, and he 
sat down to his dinner with all the certainty that the next day he 
would strike the town with a fresh sensation. He was not often 
' on the street ;' for be it known, 

He was a man retired in wealth, 

An ancient man, in feeble health. 

But the fatal sisters with their intolerable shears, dipt his hope 
in the bud. A varlet who had watched him all the way from the 
hatter's to his home — a sort of crazy lounger of the place, more 
knave than fool, though enough of either — determined to ' regain 
his felt, and feel what he regained.' And as the chizen sat at 
meat, and thinking of the novelty of hat which he should sport on 
the morrow, it came to pass that the varlet entered, and stole the 
unhackneyed chapeau from the hall. He left in the place of it, 
his own miserable head-gear, open at top, and smothered in 
grease, with the following words on a slip of whitey-brown paper, 
in pencil : 

' My Suffering Sir : 

' I have taken your new hat, but I leave you my eternal gratitude. 

' Your anonymous friend, ' B. Bari.ow. 

' p. S. I leave you an open apology for what I have taken, which I wish 
you to show to a candid world.' 'B. B.' 



OLLAPODIANA. 255 

Great was the proprietor of that hat's consternation, (this is 
rather an obscure, but a very common, mode of transposition,) 
when he came out after dinner to seek what was lost. ' Con- 
found him ! curse him !' was his vehement ejaculation. ' Curse 
his 'gratitude!' What good does that do me? Where is my 
new hat ?' 

I HAVE read, with a great deal of interest, the extraordinary 
and quite original proposition, by the favorite writer and pulpit 
orator of the ' Messiah' congregation,* concerning the progress 
of music. There are few who do not love the concord of sweet 
sounds ; if they are, we have assurance, on the highest literary 
authority, that they are fit for stratagems, and the ' spoils of vic- 
tory' won thereby. But I launch forth at once upon a strong- 
expression, which I seldom use, when I say, that I rather think 
*»hat the subsequent theory of my favorite aforesaid is likely to 
make an immense revolution in the progress of musical science ; 
namely, music by steam. When we look back to what was done 
in the musical days of ' Salmagundi,' when a fall of snow, par- 
liamentary deliberations, and other soft and sleepy transactions, 
were expressed by appropriate music, we find that the science, 
like the witness in his box, ' stared into the face of the public 
with rapid strides.' There was no evading the current melody. 

But this was in the infancy of the science, in our happy land. 
And I have been thinking it most surprising that this matter has 
not before been discovered. I have supposed that it must have 
been owing to the alarming want of taste which has been ascer- 
tained to exist, by those who are only enabled to remark on 
this most obstruse and interesting subject, that there are 'two 
beats in a bar ; two down, and two up.' Indeed, it is a curious 
thing, this same music. My old friend, Sir Thomas Browne, 
with all the inquiry of his mind, tells us that he considers the 
question, ' what songs the syrens sang,' as a decided enigma ; 
and I believe it has never been accurately ascertained what tune 
was ' pitched upon,' when the morning stars sang together. But 
we may venture to indulge the idea that they were all perfect in 
their parts, from the glittering hasso to the effulgent tenore ; the 
Bear, the Pleiades, and all. Under the circumstances, and with 
no opportunity for rehearsal, I am persuaded that the whole con- 
cert was as well ' got up' as could have been expected in the 
case, and at so short a notice. 

* Rev. Orville Dewey ; who suggested, in a secular address, that the whistle 
of the locomotive might yet give place to a safety-valve that should 'discourse 
most excellent music' Editor. 



256 OLLAPODIANA. 

I HAVE turned this subject of steam-music extensively over in 
my mind, of late ; and I have married myself to the idea, after a 
very short courtship, that it is a kind of thing that must go on. 
At the first blush, indeed, it might appear chimerical ; but I ask 
the skeptic why the steam-whisde of a locomotive should not dis- 
course in tones more soft and winning ? Why can not a loco- 
motive ask a cow to leave a railroad track in a politer manner 
than in that discordant shriek, which excites the animal's indig- 
nation, and awakens her every sentiment of quadrupedal inde- 
pendence ? I protest against such conduct. We presume a lo- 
comotive to buzz, and vapor, and deport itself pragmatically ; but 
its conversation by the way ought to be chastened into something 
like propriety ; and please Apollo, I think it will. I once saw 
an animal of this stamp killed instantly by the crushing ti-ansit of 
a train ; and I thought I saw in the singular turn of her upper 
lip, as her torn-out heart lay yet palpitating on the rails, a pecu- 
liar curl of disdain, in her dying moments, at the treatment she 
had won. I put this down, because I hope 't will be remember- 
ed as a warning to whistlers in especial, and the great generation 
of cakes unborn. 

On one of those warm April-like afternoons, with which, in 
our Pliiladelphia meridian, the fierce February chose to delight 
us, as if by contrast, I sat by my open window, which com- 
mands, through and over pleasant trees, fine glimpses of the 
ooimtry : and 

' As the red round sun descended, 
Mid clouds of crimson light,' 

I began to feel coming upon me the influence of a reverie. For 
a long time, my good friend whom I ' occupy' at present with 
this matter, I have had my day-dreams sadly broken in upon ; 
in tlie few roses I have gathered, T have found the cypress min- 
gling among their faded leaves ; and a voice, as from the lowly 
jeafiness of an autumnal wilderness, has spoken of the lost and of 
the past. Why is it, that though the mind may wander, the 
heart can never forget? Well could I say with him who sings 
so well : 

' Thou unrelenting Past ! 

Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain ; 
And fetters, sure and fast, 

Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 

' In thy abysses hide 
Beauty and excellence unknown ; to thee 

Earth's wonder and her pride 
Are gathered, as the waters to the sea ." 



OLLAPODIANA. 257 

And there they rest in dust and cold obstruction ! Oh, that 
those who walk about in the beauty of the morning, with »the 
greenness of earth around them, and the mysterious vitality which 
makes the elements in their nostrils, would think of this ; con- 
sidering truly their coming end ! 



But I digress entirely ; being about to say, that this reverie 
was superinduced by looking at some observations that had been 
made upon the charming theory of my friend. I thought of the 
time when such a thing as steam-music should at least equal the 
common museum-music, if not surpass it, and distance conclu- 
sively the airs wherewith the goodly puritans of yore were wont 
to chant the immortal metre of Sternhold and Hopkins. Ima- 
gination took a wide range — and presently I was in a dream. 

And methought in my dream, that I was in the second story 
parlor of the* ' Atlantic and Pacific Hotel, and United States' 
Half-way House,' on the very top of the Rocky Mountains. 
This hotel was built of marble, with splendid Corinthian pillars, 
gracing a portico nearly three hundred feet long. Meseemed I 
had just arrived there by rail-road, in four hours and a half from 
Philadelphia, which I remembered, as I left, was on each side 
of the Schuykill, that being central, as the Thames is in London. 
We did not stop at Pittsburgh, or any of those immense metro- 
poles, but whizzed at the rate I have mentioned. My destination 
was to the city of Memphis, on the shore of the Pacific, where I 
expected to arrive at two o'clock the next day. 

A considerable village stretched along the mountain, although 
the place was not in existence three weeks before. After a 
sumptuous repast, and a beautiful view of the country, east and 
west, which I may hereafter describe, I took up the village news- 
paper. It was entitled the ' New-Babylon Observer, and Regis- 
ter of the World.' The copy I held in my hand bore the date 
of May the seventeenth, nineteen hundred and forty. It was sent 
round the place by a rail-car, and was thrown into the dwellings 
by machinery, conducted by steam. The first paragraphs that 
struck my eye, were these, amply emblazoned, suddenly to 
catch the general eye : 

'RRPORTED for the new -BABYLON OBSERVER. 

'terrific circumstance! 

« It becomes our painful but imperative and extraordinary duty, to pro- 
mulgate the facts of a disaster which reached us to-day, by the mail from 
Thebes, via the perpendicular railroad. As a party were ascending, with 
the locomotive playing a lively tune, assisted on the piana-forte by another 
locomotive, that liad been hired by Signor Goitim, preparatory to his first 

17 



258 OLLAPODIANA. 

concert in New-Babylon, some religious persons of the ' United States' Es- 
tablished Mormon Church,' insisted that the tune, being irreverent, should 
be changed. This offensive tune was no less than the well known and 
popular song, (supposed to have been written in England, previous to the 
subjugationof that place by the Russians,) entitled ' Proceed it, ye Crip- 
pled Ones, Babylon's Nigh.' This complimentary course on the part of 
the locomotive, and the gentlemanly engineer with whom it associates, was 
hissed by the Mormons, until they were overcome by the encores of the 
majority. The locomotive was of course embarrassed, but we understand, 
continued to play. One of the Mormons, enraged beyond measure at this 
circumstance, rushed forward through the door-ways of the train, and wan- 
tonly turned the stop-cock of ' What's become of Good Old Daniel V one 
of the slowest tunes of the day. The conserpience was, that the train pro- 
ceeded with the greatest discord, because the latter tune was for the back- 
track, in descending the mountain. The result was, the cars were thrown 
off the rails, down a precipice of nearly three hundred feet ; but owing to 
the exertions of Mr. Lvclixatio:^ Plain, first engineer, they were got 
back by his Upward Impulse Screw, which h^s thus far answered admira- 
bly, stopping cars in mid-air, if they run off a precipice, and returning them 
safely, by means of the patent steam wind-bags, which extend beneath the 
trains, and destroy their gravity. 

' We are authorized to slate, that no blame attaches to the quick-tune 
party ; whereas the slow-tune faction were entirely in the wrong. Thus 
has a science, invented by a monk of the Unitarian order, in the city of 
Alleghania, (then called New-York,) and which worked its way into so 
much respect and favor, been the cause of danger, by the pertinacity of a 
(ew. We trust it will not occur again ; if it do, we shall proclaim it to the 
tune of the Rogue's March, through the whole of New-Babylon, in our 
Steam-car Extra. No doubt our dastardly contemporary, of the 'War- 
horse of Freedom and America's Champion,' whose prospectus and types 
arrived last night, and whose first number appears to-morrow, will endeavor 
to contradict this statement. We dare him to his teeth to do so. He 
knows, while the snaky blood writhes at his caitiff heart, and the malignity 
of twenty-three demons, (we think we should be justified in mentioning 
more,) glares from his diabolic eye, that what we state is fact ; and that 
each member of the quick-tune party, in asserting his inalienable musical 
rights, was as innocent as an unbegotten merino.' 



Reader, the record of my reverie is not ended, but my sheet 
is full. If I live and prosper, we will meet again. Heaven bless 
you, and all the children ! Ever thine, 

Ollapod. 



THE END OF OLLAFODIANA. 



PROSE MISCELLANIES, 



PREFACE 



TO T H K 



PROSE MISCELLANIES 



It is proper to remark, in relation to the foregoing ' OUapodiana' Papers, 
as well as of the ensuing Prose Miscellanies, that they were all written at 
such stolen intervals as the sole editor of a daily journal can command from 
pressing avocations. This fact, it is hoped, will be taken into consideration, 
in forming an estimate of the writer's powers. If these pages could have 
been carefully revised and pruned by his own hand, they would doubtless 
have better deserved the favorable regard of the public. There is another 
point, touching the accompanying prose papers, on which the Editor would 
ofler a word or two in explanation. It was his pui-pose to have presented 
nothing which should have served as a contrast to the uniformly amiable 
character of his brother's writings. Such a contrast is perhaps however 
afforded by the article on 'Aitierican Poets, and their Critics.' But its in- 
sertion has been advised by several of the oldest and warmest friends of the 
deceased ; and the Editor has not thought it proper to resist their counsel. 
The criticism, indeed, as the reader can plainly see, was most justly de- 
served. It was every where welcomed as a felicitous and timely exposure 
of an » inveterate literary pretender.' The Neio- York American, among 
many other journals, eulogized the article as ' a capital paper, wherein the 
impostures of that miserable literary charlatan, the Hibernico-Philadelphia- 
Reviewer, were most humorously exposed;' adding, that 'the fact of the 
Editor of the 'American Quarterly' allowing so absurd a character to figure 
in that publication, rendered him respectable enough, in a literary point of 
view, to receive a lashing in the Knickerbockee.' This was the general 
tone of the American press. It may not be amiss to observe, that the 
' Leaves from an Aeronaut' record the actual experience of an aerial voya- 
ger ; Mr. DuRA?iT, the American pioneer in aerostatics, at the request of 
the writer, having furnished him with a detailed account of the occurrences 
of one of his • flights into heaven.' The laughable tale of • Desperation,' the 



262 PREFACE. 

writer was wont to say, describes an actual occurrence in the life of a Phila- 
delphia student. Captain Marryat, some four or five years after the story 
appeared in the Knickkrbocker, adopted it for a London Magazine, merely 
substituting English for American localities, and slightly changing one oi 
two of the minor incidents. The thrilling events narrated in 'An Old 
Man's Records' are matters of history. 'The Snake Eater' is almost re- 
volting in its opening revelations; it is satisfactorily explained however in 
the conclusion, and is, moreover, founded upon what was stated lo the wri- 
ter to have been an actual occurrence. 



PROSE MISCELLAIIES. 



A CHAPTER ON CATS. 

I MET with a good article the other day in a native magazine, 
on the subject of whiskers — a pilosus and prohfic theme. Talk- 
ing of whiskers reminds me of cats. The transition is natural. 
Feline quadrupeds are justly celebrated for their claims to admi- 
ration in respect of whiskers. In the conformation of his mandi- 
bular appendages, Nature has been generous with the cat. Not 
only do they stand out from his face like the elongated mus- 
taches of old Shah Abbas of Persia, but there is within them a 
sleepless spirit, a shrewd and far reaching sense, which puts to 
shame the similar ornaments on the faces of bipeds of the genus 
homo. Thcif, indeed, can make their whiskers look well, by 
baptizing them with cati de Cologne, and Rowland's Macassar 
Oil, or peradventure, the unctuous matter won from the ' tried 
reins' of defunct bears ; but where is the intelligence, the dis- 
cernment, of their rivals ? 

The whiskers of a cat are truly sparse and unseemly ; but 
their qualities of observation and apprehension furnish an ample 
recompense for the absence of beauty. How many a heedless 
rat or truant mouse has paid the forfeit of his hfe by those all- 
scenting properties which are concentrated in the whiskers of a 
feline hunter ! How have their little ribs cracked between the 
jaws of some notorious tabby, and their long tails lashed her 
head in the agonies of dissolution ! This, however is a painful 
subject, and I perceive that in treating it I am falling into the sen- 
timental. 

Talking of sentiment, as connected with cats, reminds me of an 
epoch in my life, over which the shadows of unpleasant fate hang 
like clouds in an evening firmament, and turn the past into dark- 
ness. Shall I rend away the veil, as your crack novelist would 
say, and harrow up my recollections, until my heart swells and my 



264 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

head aches whh the melancholy retrospection ? Perish the idea ! 
No — no : prepared as I am to go all lengths along the fence 
which divides me from the dominion of memory, yet when I look 
at that length, I feel as though I could not ' go it!' But — yes — 
no matter ; the warning of my example may be of service to some 
reader, who may happen hereafter to be ' situated, and I may 
say, circumstanced,' as I was. • 

I am a respectable young bachelor, with a courteous address, a 
musical taste, some acquaintance with letters, and a too suscep- 
tible heart. In choosing my whereabout in this good city of 
brotherly love, where I arrived a few years ago from the country, 
to hang out ray tin sign of ' Attorney,' etc., I sought for such 
lodgings as would be convenient to the office, where I wrote my 
briefs, and took in my clients. Acting on this principle, I made 
my conge one bright May morning to a landlady in Chestnut 
street, of whose table and apartments I had heard the best ' ex- 
clamation.' She was a short, pursy woman, with a long neck, a 
lawn cap on her head, and a most respectful demeanor. The 
cap was thin, and the gray hair was very perceptible under the 
same ; but on her forehead were parted two raven waves ; 



the dowry of some second bead, 



The skull thai bred them in the sepulchre.' 

Pleased with her smile, for it was benevolence itself, I asked her 
if she could furnish me with a small parlor and bed-room adja- 
cent ? Her reply showed that her benevolence did not extend 
to her native tongue, which she grossly maltreated in divers hos- 
tile expressions, then and there used on the premises. She re- 
sponded that the ' parlors was all took, but one in the third story, 
with a bed-room contagious, for which I would be taxed five dol- 
lars and three levys a week.' I replied that I did not wish to be 
taxed with apartments subject to levies ; that the property of which 
I desired to stand seized as tenant, ought to be unincumbered, 
and beyond the discomfort of any pecuniary lien or claim. I 
was soon eased on this point by an affirmation, on the part of the 
respondent, that a levy was a coin ; corresponding, as 1 afterward 
learned by some fiscal inquiries, to a New-York shilling. 

A few moments' conversation in the parlor, into which I was 
invited, finished the business. I took the lodgings, and with 
pleased alacrity ensconced myself therein. Every thing went on 
much to my satisfaction. The victuals and drink were praise- 
worthy, the lodgers few, principally boarding-school misses, be- 
yond a certain age, learning the then latest music, such as ' The 
Mmstrel's Return from the War,' ' When my Eye,' * Come where 



A CHAPTER ON CATS. 265 

the Aspens quiver,' ' Lightly Tread,' et cetera. With these airs, 
accompanying themselves on a broken-winded piano, a chattel of 
the establishment, did they diurnally bore my ears. 

I soon became perfectly domiciliated. The ladies grew more 
and more communicative ; and it was sadly-pleasing, to see the 
pensive manner in which they would flirt their fans when we all 
sat by the windows at nightfall in the great parlor below, which 
commanded a broad view of the street. Sometimes on these oc- 
casions, when in a reverie, I used to hum some familiar air ; and 
this once led one of the oldest ladies, whose education had just 
been finished by the greatest instructress in the city, to remark 
that ' she was sure I could sing lovely, if I should try ; but that 
she believed I did n't want to let on.'' I did not at first compre- 
hend this phraseology of the fair scholar, and it remains until this 
day with me a mystery undefined. It is understandable, but not 
explainable. I made an answer to the remark, that was apposite 
enough not to expose my ignorance of the lady's meaning; for it 
is well to stand high in the estimation of those who are com- 
pleted in 'composition, drawing, geography, and the use of the 
globes.' 

I did not however bless the parlor with much of my presence. 
The one which had been assigned me was a perfect gem of an 
apartment. Everything in it was neat ; and I took no small de- 
light in hanging it with paintings and pictures. It looked di- 
rectly into Chestnut-street, our Philadelphia Broadway, and I was 
wont to sit by the casement in the summer twilight, listening to 
the negligent footfalls of the promenaders, who strolled abroad on 
the • thousand errands and purposes of business or pleasure. 
Directly to the east, a door opened into my bed-room, the con- 
tagious apartment of which my landlady had spoken. Here the 
window looked into a garden, the property of the next resident 
on the street. And a fine garden it was. Flowers of every hue, 
the first and fairest of the year, were glowing along the walks in 
red, golden, and purple luxuriance. The verdant and ductile 
vines gadded over tasteful trellices, and the breath of growing 
things floated up to my casement like incense. 

Perhaps the reader may desire to know what this has to do 
with the subjects of cats ? You shall see anon. The facts are 
extant, and must not remain unwritten. 

I soon found my bed-room contagious, sure enough. I could 
not study, because of a fair dulcinea across the garden. Even at 
night we used to look at each other. It was a kind of indistinct, 
moonshiny speculation, it is true — but it had its raptures. 

My inquiries respecting the damsel were of the most satisfac- 



266 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

tory kind. Her name was Florence Dillon. She was just seven- 
teen ; amiable, and accounted rich, but for the latter considera- 
tion I cared not a rush when connected with her. It was a 
source of unbounded perplexity to me how I should manage to 
make her acquaintance. I consorted with few of those young 
men, wearing bushy whiskers, white inexpressibles, vacant coun- 
tenances, and small canes, with which Philadelphia abounds ; for 
I had never fancied their amusements of riding to the Lamb 
tavern for a julep, fighting dung-hill fowls on the Schuylkill, or 
playing at faro in the obscure dens and alleys of the town. Be- 
ing unaccomplished in these fashionable amusements, and withal 
rather addicted to reading and mental improvement, my asso- 
ciates were limited, for I found few spirits either choice or con- 
genial. 

Finally, a lucky chance favored my desires. I saw Miss 
Florence one evening at the theatre, with her brother. Just at 
the close of the first play, it came on to rain. 1 ascertained by 
accident that the Dillons were without an umbrella. I knew they 
had a very short distance to go, and therefore would not be hkely 
to call a coach. I immediately rushed home and procured my 
own umbrella, and one in addition. When I returned, the green 
curtain had dropped, and they were in the lobby, on the point of 
departure. The shower was then at its height. It was one of 
those nights when play-bill boards are dripping ; when pedestrians, 
swift in locomotion, are seen in long perspective along the streets, 
with their umbrellas shining in the lamp-light ; a doleful night, 
especially at the theatre, 

' When tender Beauty, looking for her coach, 
Protrudes her gloveless hand, perceives the shower, 
And draws the tippet closer round her throat : 
Perchance her coach stands half a dozen off, 
And ere she mounts the step, the oozing mud 
Soaks through her pale kid slipper. On the morrow 
She coughs at breakfast, and her gruft' papa 
Cries, 'There you go ! this comes of play-houses I' 

Determined to be gallant, yet coloring a litde at my boldness, I 
took the liberty of offering my umbrella to the gendeman, giving 
him at the same time some information respecting its necessity 
on account of the weather. My impression is that my manner 
was agreeable, for Miss Dillon surveyed me with a very affec- 
tionate recognition ; and her soft blue eyes, shaded by rich brown 
hair, parted on her beaming brow, were filled with what Thom- 
son would call ' lively gratitude.' 

I called the next evening at Dillon's, per promise, for my um- 
brella. I found the family most agreeable. The mother was 



A CHAPTER ON CATS. 267 

delighted to hear me praise her favorite minister, after I found 
out who he was ; and the father was what is now-a-days called 
* a gentleman of the old school ;' namely, one whose education 
has been wofully neglected, but whose assaults upon the venacu- 
lar are overlooked on account of his good nature, good dinners, 
and good wine. 

Thenceforth I was a faithful visitor two or three times a week. 
I grew desperately enamored — my passion was returned : I was 
a happy youth ; I walked among the stars. I bent my soul to 
distinction in my calling, and resolved to merit my mistress be- 
fore I won her, or to amass, in the words of Diggory's adviser in 
the play, ' summat to make the matrimonial pot boil.' 

The charming Florence was amiability itself. I found her af- 
fections were so exuberant, that she bestowed them upon every- 
thing within the magic circle of her presence — even upon ani- 
mals. Among the objects of her esteem was a cat ; a beautiful, 
tortoise-shell creature, I confess, but deserving the objection 
which the housemaid preferred against her, of having ' never had 
no broughtage up.' She had been Miss Dillon's companion 
from her childish years, and had grown to graceful and dignified 
maturity under her fostering hand. I will not deny that I re- 
spected the old tabby for her sake. We used to discuss her 
merits often. I little thought the venerable quadruped would 
blight my hopes, and precipitate all my wo. 

Florence and myself were soon accounted engaged. We used 
to walk arm in arm in the street, to let the gossips know that such 
was the fact. I plunged like a gladiator into the law ; I was a 
favorite at court ; and my causes and fees, in hand and in pros- 
pect, were neither few nor small. 

I am subject, in summer, to restlessness. Thick-coming fan- 
cies mar my rest, and my ear is peculiarly sensitive to the least 
inappropriate sound. One sultry evening in July, I returned 
home later than usual, from an arbitration, wherein I lost a cause 
on which I had counted certainly to win. I suspect I bored the 
arbitrators with too long a plea, and too voluminous quotations 
of precedents ; for, when I finished, two were asleep, and most 
of the others yawning. They decided against my client, and I 
came home mad with chagrin, and crept into bed, longing for 
speedy oblivion in the arms of Sleep. 

But that calm sister of death would not be won to my embrace. 
I lay tossing for a long time in ' restless ecstacy,' until vexed and 
overwearied nature at last sunk to repose. I could not have 
slumbered over ten minutes, before I was awakened by the most 
outrageous caterwauling that ever stung the human ear. I arose 



268 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

in a fury, and looked out of the window. All was still. The 
cause for outcry appeared to have ceased. Now and then there 
was a low, gutteral wail, between a suppressed grunt and a squeal; 
but it was so faint that nothing could have lived 'twixt that and 
silence. After a listening probation of a few minutes, I slunk 
back into my sheets. 

I had scarcely dozed a quarter of an hour, when the obnox- 
ious vociferations arose again. They were fierce, ill-natured, and 
shrill. I arose again, vexed beyond endurance. All was quiet 
in a moment. I am not given to profanity ; I deem it foolish 
and wicked ; but on this occasion, after stretching my body like 
a sheeted ghost, half out of the window, and gazing into the 
shadows of the garden to discover the object of my annoyance, I 
exclaimed, in a loud and spiteful voice, which expressed my con- 
centrated hate : 

'D — n that cat /' 

' Young gentleman,' said a passing guardian of the night, from 
the street, ' you had better pop your head in, and stop your 
noise. If you do n't, you will rue it ; now mind-I-tell-ye.' 

' Look here, old Charley,' said I, in return, ' do n't be im- 
pertinent. It is your business to preserve the peace, and to ob- 
viate every evil that looks disgracious in the city's eye. You 
guard the slumbers of her citizens ; and if you expect a dollar 
from me at Christmas, for the poetry in your next annual address, 
you will perform what I now request, and what it is your solemn 
and bounden duty to do. Spring your rattle ; comprehend that 
vagrom cat, and take her to the watch-house. 1 will appear as 
plaintiff against the quadruped, before the mayor, in the morning. 
Her character is bad — her habits are scandalous.' 

' Oh, pshaw !' said the watchman, and went clattering up the 
street, singing ' N'hav pa-a-st dwelve o'glock, and a glowdee 
morn.' 

I reverted to my pillow, and fell into a train of conjectures 
touching the grimalkin. Possibly it might be the darling old 
friend of Miss Dillon. Then I thought of others — then I slept. 
I can not declare to a second how long my fitful slumber last- 
ed, before I was startled from my bed by a yell, which proceeded 
apparently from a cat in my room. I had just been dreaming of 
a great mouser, with ears like a jackass, and claws, armed with 
long ' pickers and stingers,' sitting on my bosom, and sucking 
away my breath. I sprang at once into the middle of the room. 
I searched everywhere — nothing was in the apartment. Then 
there rushed toward the zenith one universal cat-shriek, which 
went echoing off on the night-wind like the reverberation of a 
sharp thunder-peal. 



A CHAPTER ON CATS. 269 

My blood was now iq) for vengeance. One hungry and fiery 
wish to destroy that diabohcal caterwauler, took possession of my 
soul. At that instant the clock struck one. It was the death- 
knell of the feline vocalist. I looked out of the window, and in 
the light of a stray lot of moonshine, streaming through the tall 
chimneys to the south-east, I saw Miss Dillon's romantic favorite, 
alternately cooing and fighting with a large mouser of the neigh- 
borhood, that I had seen for several afternoons previous, walking 
leisurely along the garden wall, as if absorbed in deep meditation, 
and forming some libertine resolve. In fine, they each seemed 
saturate with the spirit of the Gnome king, Umbriel, in the drama, 
when he 

' stalked abroad, 

Urging the wolf to tear the buffalo.' 

The death of one of these noisy belligerents being determined on, 
I looked round my room for the tools of retribution. Not a movea- 
ble thing, however, could I discover, save a new pitcher, which 
had been sent home that very day, and to which my name and 
address were appended on a bit of card. I clutched it with des- 
perate fury, and pouring into my bowl the water contained in it, 
I poised it in my hand for the deadly heave. I had been a mem- 
ber of a quoit club in the country, and the principles of a clever 
throw were familiar to me. I resolved to make the vessel de- 
scribe what is called in philosophy b. parabolic curve, so that while 
it knocked out the brains of one combatant, it should efl^ectually 
admonish the survivor of the iniquity of his doings. I approach- 
ed the window — balanced the pitcher — and then drave it home. 
Its reception was acknowledged by a loud, choking squall — a 
faint yell of agony, and then a respectful silence. J^atisfied that 
my pitcher had been broken at the fountain of life, and that the si- 
lent tabby would not soon tune her pipes again, I retired to bed, 
and slept with the serenity and comfort of one who is conscious of 
having performed a virtuous action. 

In the morning, the cat was found ' keeled up' on a bed of 
pinks, with her head broken in, and her ancient and venerable 
whiskers dabbled in blood. The shattered pitcher lay by her 
side. The vessel had done its worst — so had my victim. The 
body was taken off early in the forenoon, and decently interred 
by the gardener, who said to the chambermaid in my hearing, 
that ' Miss Florence must n't not by no means whatsomever come 
for to know that the old puss had gone the v'yage.' Stupid 
hind ! He neither knew the cause of the animal's death, nor the 
impossibility of its concealment. 

Sorrow is always communicative. Betty had scarcely made 



270 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

the beds in the mansion, before she hied to Miss Florence's apart- 
ment, and related to her the doleful demise of her spotted com- 
panion. They forthwith descended together into the garden ; re- 
connoitred the spot where the poor thing breathed her last, and 
found my broken pitcher with the card attached, on the very the- 
atre of destruction. 

Suspicion was aroused. I was the object. Circumstantial 
evidence was clear against me. When I went home to dinner, I 
found a note from Florence, accusing me of the murder. I could 
have turned state's-evidence, and poured the tide of obloquy upon 
the vile paramour of the deceased ; but I scorned all subterfuge. 
I answered the note immediately, acknowledging that, in a mo- 
ment of bewilderment, drowsiness, and passion, I perpetrated the 
deed, and throwing myself upon her generosity for pardon. 

But it was in vain. I had made a wrong throw. Another angry 
note reached me at supper. This, I was determined to answer 
in person, and called, as soon as tea was over, in a state of pro- 
fuse perspiration, to effect that object. 

I found Miss Dillon perfectly furious. Her fair face was red 
with indignation ; consuming fires flashed from her eyes — those 
orbs which I had praised so often, and which were wont to ex- 
hibit only the light of ' generous meanings.' She inexorably re- 
fused all attempts at an apology. She gave me back my minia- 
ture and ring, and protested that I might spare myself any fur- 
ther concern on her account. She was deeply-read in elemen- 
tary school-books, and she quoted copiously from a didactic 
piece in one of them, I think the American Preceptor, • On 
Cruelty to Animals,' in which it is conclusively shown that the 
man who would harm ' a necessary cat,' would not scruple to 
treat his father like a pickpocket, his wife like a fisherwoman, and 
his children like puppies. She repeated that she had done with 
me, and signified a hope that I would take that remark for her 
ultimatum. 

Just after supper, of a July evening, a young man does not 
feel cool enough to pocket the slightest contumely. I arose 
with great dignity, and told Miss Dillon, that I had no desire to 
press my suit ; that if she demurred, I was ready to confess the 
judgment, and bow to the same. I observed that from the speci- 
mens of her temperament that had just then fallen under my no- 
tice, I could have little regret in sundering a chain which had 
altered so soon from silk to iron. Memory began to disturb my 
feelings, and the thought of what I was about to lose, made my 
voice womanish ; so I cocked my hat on fiercely, bowed politely, 
and walked rapidly out of the apartment with the tread of a sullen 



A CHAPTER ON CATS. 271 

Stage hero, who mutters in sohloquy, and ' dialogues with his 
shadow.' 

Since that period, I have been, in the main, a melancholy man. 
I am pale, and cynical. The ' opjwsite sex,' as Mrs. Trollope 
calls them, charm me not as of yore. I am a waif upon the com- 
munity, wherein none take an interest. I loved Florence Dillon 
as I shall never love again ; and the cause of our disunion — a 
nullifying cat — has given me a sovereign antipathy to all the 
race. 1 have no ill-will against young kittens, with their tender 
voices and affectionate eyes ; and I can contemplate even an old 
cat in the virtuous retirement of the country, purring drowsily by 
a winter's fire, with some complacency. Then, the tenor of her 
life is equable and innocent. She is not subject to be led away 
after fantastical delights ; she goeth not into temptation. But 
your city grimalkins have no moral character. Their habits are 
loose — their clamors unceasing. Romantic appointments by 
night, and household pilferings by day, make up their existence : 
and the only time they are harmless, is in those fitful moments 
when 

' their little life, 

Is rounded with a sleep.' 

They fight and bustle like those celebrated Kilkenny combat- 
ants, which ate each other up in such wise that not the tail-end 
of either remained for a token of victory ; ' that died and left no 
sign.' They creep into cradles, and feed upon the fragrant 
breath of young children ; and a fatal instance of this kind was 
recorded in our newspapers only a few months ago. If well 
used, they grow familiar, and strew your garments with a bequest 
of hairs ; if you maltreat them, or despitefully use them, they 
will waste the night-watches in mewing to keep you awake. 

It is well to evoke consolation even from trouble. I know 
some good jokes of cats, which I can enjoy, even though I know 
that my Florence is the wife of a stupid old bachelor — an 
'eligible match,' — a man with his brains in his purse, and his at- 
tainments in his breeches' pocket ; in brief, a dough-head of the 
heaviest description. Yes ! thank old Time, I am better than I 
was when I was so love-sick. A good story pleases me of late, 
as it did in my better days. Here is one, which excited my 
cachinations. I will vouch for its truth. 

An anonymous wag not long ago placed an advertisement in each 
of our city journals, signed by an eminent house on the Delaware 
wharf, and slating that Five Hundred Cats were wanted im- 
mediately by the firm. The said firm in the meantime knew 
nothing of the matter. 



272 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

On visiting their counting-house the next morning, the partners 
found the streets hterally blocked up with enterprising cat-sellers. 
Huge negroes were there, each with ten or fifteen sage, grave 
tabbies tied together with a string. Old market women had 
brought thither whole families of the feline genus, from the super- 
annuated Tom, to the blind kitten. The air resounded with the 
squallings of the quadrupedal multitude. New venders, with 
their noisy property, were seen thronging to the place from every 
avenue. 

' What 'II you guv me for this 'ere lot ?' said a tall shad-wo- 
man, pressing up toward the counting-room. ' The newspapers 
says you allow liberal prices. I axes a dollar a piece for the 
old 'uns, and five levys for the kittens.' 

' You have been fooled,' said the chief partner, who appeared 
with a look of dismay at the door, and was obliged to speak as 
loud amid the din as a sea-captain in a storm. ' I want no cats. 
I have no use for them. I could not eat them. I could n't 
sell them. I never advertised for them.' 

A decided mendicant, a member of the great family of loaf- 
ers, with a red, bulgy nose, and bloated cheeks, who had three 
cats tied to a string in his hand, now mounted a cotton bale, and, 
producing a newspaper, spelt the advertisement through as audi- 
bly as he could under the circumstances, demanding of the as- 
sembly as he closed, 'if that there advertysement was n't a true 
bill ?' An unanimous ' Sarting !' echoed through the crowd. 
Encouraged by the electric response, the loafer proceeded to 
make a short speech. He touched upon the rights of trade, the 
liberty of the press, the importance of fair dealing, and the bene- 
fits of printing ; and concluded by advising his hearers to go the 
death for their rights, and ' not to stand no humbug.' Such was 
the effect of his eloquence, that the firm against which he wielded 
his oratorical thunder, found it necessary to compromise matters 
by treating the entire concourse to a hogshead of wine. The 
company separated at an early hour, consoled for the loss of 
their bargains and the emptiness of their pockets, by the light- 
someness of their heads and hearts. 

Gentle Reader, — my tale is told. If you love cats, I have no 
objection, because it is none of my business. ' De gustibus,^ etc. 
But if I have not deposed enough to justify mij hatred of all the 
tribe, then argument is powerless, and truth a matter of moon- 
shine. 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 273 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 

This is some fellow, 
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect 
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb. 
Quite from his nature : He cannot flatter, he ! 
An honest mind and plain — he must speak truth : 
An' if they take it, so ; if not, he's plain. 
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness 
Harbor more craft and more corrupter ends, 
Than twenty upright, careful observants. 
Who weigh the matter nicely. Shakspeare. 

The fact is as undeniable as it is generally acknowledged, that 
since the death of Lord Byron, the best fugitive poetry of the 
United States has been greatly superior to that of England. We 
have bards among us whose productions would shine by the side 
of seven-tenths even of the authors collected in those ponderous 
tomes entitled the ' British Classics,' or ' Select British Poets.' 
Let any reader of taste look over those collections, and see how 
much matter there is in them, of no superior merit, floating 
down the stream of time, like flies in amber, only because it is 
bound up with productions of acknowledged and enduring excel- 
lence. Let a reader glance, for example, at the volume of Aikin 
or even of Hazlitt — though that is less exceptionable — and he 
will find many effusions, whose authors, permissively, are almost 
sanctified to fame, that are yet greatly inferior to no small portion 
of American fugitive poetr3\ This may not at present be readily 
acknowledged ; because it is a weakness of human nature, that 
men are apt to attach far less credit to the productions of con- 
temporary writers, than each of those same writers and his pro- 
ductions receive, after the palsy of death has descended upon the 
hand that recorded, and the heart that indited. 

We need not cite examples in favor of the foregoing declara- 
tions. Their truth, we believe, is familiar, both to the American 
public, and the tasteful readers of Europe. In speaking of 
American poetry, we mean that which has been produced by na- 
tives, born and bred ; not the forlorn effusions of certain trans- 
planted foreigners, who have labored so long and so unsuccess- 
fully to be numbered among the bright train of native bards. We 
mean the writers and the products of ' our own, our native land.' 
We feel a glow of honest pride in their array. In the works of 
HiLLHousE, we have a strength, a finish, and a profoundness of 
knowledge, which strike the mind and heart like the page of a 

18 



274 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

Milton ; productions unsurpassed by any of recent origin, for 
their correctness, their grandeur, and beauty. In the effusions 
of Bryant, the Thomson of America, we have those faithful 
pictures of natural life and human affection, fraught with the 
soundest philosophy, which can not fail or die. They are des- 
tined to live with the Seaso7is ; to appeal with their pure truth 
and sweet fidelity, to the intellect and love of other generations. 
We may mark in Halleck, the Byronic spirit and fire of song ; 
the English undefiled ; thrilling the bosom in his lyrics, and 
charming the taste in his lighter lays. In Percival, may be 
seen the flowing diction and imagery of Moore ; and in Sprague, 
a pathos and harmony, which Pope himself has never exceeded. 

Are not these allegations undeniable V What European trage- 
dy, produced within the last thirty years, is superior to the Ha- 
dad of Hillhouse ? What poet, in that time, has surpassed in 
ease and truth the best poems of Bryant? Who, during the 
same space, abroad or at home, has written a more soul-stirring 
lyric than Halleck's Marco Botzaris ? Will the best productions 
of Percival suffer by a comparison with the latest, and of course 
the maturest, of Moore or Campbell? Will Byron's Prize Ad- 
dress at Drury Lane coinjiarc with Sprague's at the Park Thea- 
tre ? Has not the latter been pronounced every way superior, 
even in England ? We propose these questions with pride. 
They have already been triumphantly answered on both sides of 
the Atlantic. 

But this is not all. There are other names, full of promise, 
growing yearly more lustrous in our literary annals, to which we 
have not time or space at present to allude. They are names 
borne by scholars and men of intellect, whose busy pursuits may 
repress the influence of song within them, but can not mar their 
power. From them, and their compeers, something elevated and 
lasting may in due time be confidently expected. 

There is one cause which has perhaps operated somewhat 
against a proper appreciation of the writers we have mentioned. 
Their actual merits are in our opinion undervalued, on account 
of the complaints occasionally made of them by journalists, that 
no one of them has produced a lo?ig poe/n. This is very true ; 
but we do not conceive it necessary that a man should create a 
labored epic to substantiate a claim to the character of a first-rate 
poet. Gray has descended to posterity, and will go on to other 
ages, in his incomparable Elegy ; Goldsmith is not less exten- 
sively known by his Hermit, than by his other productions ; 
while Milton, and Pope, and numerous others whom we might 
name, are commended to the general world more by ])assages in 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 275 

their great works, than by the entire works themselves. There- 
fore we may say confidently, that all the native poets we have 
mentioned, have written matter which possesses all the elements 
of perpetuity ; poems, which though short, are perfect ; full of 
nature and life, without blemish or stain. 

That we have such poets in our country, and that there are 
those who, by patient thought, unobtrusive study, and the untir- 
ing pursuit of knowledge in aid of their natural genius, are de- 
sirous to emulate such examples, until they themselves may de- 
serve approbation and success, is, we believe, a source of gratifi- 
cation to the mind of every American critic. The course of our 
highest authorities in literature, the North American Review 
and the Christian Examiner, exhibits a patronizing and dis- 
criminating spirit in this matter, which is worthy of all praise, 
since it will conduce in an eminent degree to the advancement of 
polite letters in our country. The editors of these eminent jour- 
nals in no instance permit their pages to be made the conduits of 
private bile, and individual spleen. They judge with justice, 
and in kindness they condemn. They permit no scribe who is 
scouted by the public, and whose name, when known, is an anti- 
dote to his adverse opinions, to sully their leaves with the sug- 
gestions of envious and revengeful sentiment, the results of dis- 
appointed authorehip, and a galling sense of personal obscurity. 
They look to the promise of native works, and exhibit that good 
sense and feeling by whose guidance they escape the mortifica- 
tion of seeing themselves the objects of ridicule, and their opinions 
utterly reversed, both in Europe and America. They are re- 
garded with respect, as men above the reach or the persuasion 
of contemptible motives ; and with the law of courteous impar- 
tiality guiding their pens, they perform, with honest impulses, 
their duty to the literary efforts of their countrymen. 

It is a matter of praise, also, that these are gentlemen, the 
merits of whose productions entitle them to sit in judgment upon 
the works of others. Theirs are the benefits of an unbroken 
education ; the enlarged views and information acquired by 
travel ; the proper sentiments inspired by a love of the land of 
their birth ; and the honest desire to increase rather than dimin- 
ish the reputation of their fellow-laborers in kindred pursuits. 
This course inspires in their contemporaries throughout the 
country a feeling of respectful confidence, which is the parent 
and prompter of every intellectual undertaking. 

We sincerely wish that we might pursue this just tribute to 
other quarters of similar pretensions ; but we find it impossible. 
Two quarterlies remain — the United States and the Ameiican 



276 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

Reviews, both of Philadelphia. The former has as yet put fortn 
but one number, which is highly national and liberal in its char- 
acter, and promises well for those which are to succeed ; but the 
work has not existed long enough to merit the praise which we 
do not doubt it will deserve and receive. The American Quar- 
terly has struggled along in the hands of different publishers, until 
the present time. The conductor of the work, very properly, 
has always refrained from laying any claim to consideration in the 
matter of poetry. It has never interested his mind, nor occupied 
his attention ; he professes to experience none of its soul ; and 
while the other departments of his periodical are sustained with 
a very laudable degree of talent, that of poetical criticism has 
been usually consigned to a person so utterly unfit for the office 
as to excite surprise and derision wherever his agency in this di- 
vision of the Review is known. 

In discussing the merits of this individual — which we shall do 
with all possible gentleness, consistent with the evils we are to 
expose — we disclaim every sentiment of unkindness or sinister 
partiality. We know that in literature, as in politics, he who 
undertakes to lead or guide, should be able satisfactory to an- 
swer two questions that may be asked concerning him : 'Is he 
honest ? Is he capable T We know that poetry is an important 
part of belles-lettres ; and we desire to see no misleading of the 
general mind, in relation to its state and progress in our republic. 
We would invest this high department of art with a divine and 
holy atmosphere, into whose magic circle no motives of envy, of 
chagrin, of policy or revenge, should be permitted to enter. If 
we succeed in proving that these incitements liave hitherto defiled 
the oracles of criticism, and poisoned the rich fllow of song 
among us, then we shall be amply repaid for the use of the facts 
we have gathered, and the lash we wield. 

It is difficult to describe a live critic, widiout some particulars. 
Johnson and Giftbrd gave these, each for himself. In the present 
case we shall eschew all personality, which we condemn ; and in 
giving a few points of an author, shall avoid touching the man. 

Imprimis — there is, in the city of Brotherly Love, on the 
corner of one of its rectangular thoroughfares, a small store, or 
shop, in which is sold Irish linen ; whether ready made or not, 
we can not tell. It is the mart of a Quarterly Critic ; once a 
practiser of the Galenian art, and as we have learned, with a suc- 
cess equalling the Asclepidae of yore. In Hibernia he was 
' raised ;' to America he came ; in Philadelphia he pitched his 
tent ; and rejecting physic, took to trade, in which he now trans- 
acts a decent business, in a small way. We mention these bio- 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 277 

graphical items in the outset, as arguments that his profession is 
neither literary nor akin to it ; and that he is consequently qijite 
unable to serve both Mercury and Apollo at once. 

Speculation, however, is the spirit of the age ; and our Cen- 
sor determined not to be entirely occupied in the Hnen line. 
Accordingly he came the evil eye over an unfortunate publisher, 
who consented to issue a monthly magazine and Reviev/ of Lit- 
erature under his supervision. Previous to this, we should re- 
mark, he put forth a poem entided ' The Pleasures of Friend- 
ship,' a mediocre volume, containing, we venture to assert, more 
palpable plagiarisms than can be found in any book of its size 
in Christendom. The magazine was begun ; and with it began 
the criticisms of the editor. Beside these operations, he had 
other irons in the fire ; he had novels in embryo. Before al- 
luding to these, we will show the gradations by which our critic 
rose to the acquisition of his present acumen as a quarterly re- 
viewer. 

When this monthly was in its maturity, the reputation of Lord 
Byron was at its height. They who once blamed, had become 
eulogists ; the best intelligences of both hemispheres were warm- 
ed by his genius, and vocal in his praise. But our profound 
reviewer cared for none of these things. He expressed great 
commiseration for the noble poet. He speaks of him in his 
work, as a man ' whose heavy volumes of stanzas have pestered 
the world ; a mere titled rliymester ; the author of a mass of 
hobbling, teeth-grinding poetry; the major portions of whose 
writings possess not the smallest j^artide of the soul of poetry ;' 
and after an assortment of criticisms, quite equal to the foregoing, 
he lumps the merits of Byron in the following slimmary passage : 
' That in the multiplicity of his Lordship's writings we should, 
by dint of industrious research, discover so?ne easy flowing pas- 
sages and brilliant ideas, is not much to his credit — for we can 
find the same things in the dull heroics of Sir Richard Black- 
more.' Finally, Byron is advised by our Aristarchus, in 1S24, 
to quit poetry, wherein he is so deficient, and turn his attention 
to prose, in which he might hope for decent success ! 

Nothing seems to have yielded this critic more unqualified de- 
light than the death of Lord Byron. It gave a clearer field for 
his publicationis ; it ' left the world for Am to bustle in.' His 
ecstacies on hearing of that sad event, were irrepressible. He 
came forth with a Te Deuni in his Review, from which we make 
a few extracts : ' Wo, now,' saith he, ' to these witlings, (the ad- 
mirers of Byron,) who have neither ears to discover harmonv, 
nor skill to count numbers : who mistake rhvmes for wit ; the 



278 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

Great Dagon of their idolatry is no more ! Well may they raise 
the ul-ul-loo ; he who huUicd the croicd into the reading of had 
English, who inflicted upon men of good taste the penance of pe- 
rusing hobbling numbers and false rhymes, has withdrawn from 
the scene of his exploits ! Bellow forth, ye rugged verse lovers, 
till ye split your lungs with lamentations ! Stiff, unwieldly couplets, 
or barbarous Spenserians, made the vehicles of unnatural quaint- 
ness or affected originality of ideas, have no longer a sprig of no- 
bility to dignify them, or give them attraction to the unreflecting 
multitude !' 

Our Reviewer's opinions of Sir Walter Scott, (a gentle- 
man of Abbotsford, North Britain, who wrote some novels and 
poetry,) are kindred with those he entertained of Lord Byron. 
He speaks of him as ' an unknown Scotchman ;' and of certain 
Waverley novels — that received by far the most praise on their 
appearance, and continue to be cherished with fond admiration 
by every reader of taste — as 'slovenly and insipid productions; 
abounding with aftected sentimentality, blackguards and scoun- 
drels, common as thistles in a Scotch glen ; with sheepish he- 
roes, foot-balls to every one that might choose to kick them.' 
These 'blundering works,'* he condemns in toto ; calls them 
* disgraceful literary manufactures, common-place, and stnpidly 
constructed.' In conclusion, he gave it as his candid opinion, 
that ' the sooner Sir Walter Scott ceased to write, the better for 
himself and the public' This, reader, was when the author of 
Waverley was covered with renown, and after he had produced 
some of his most immortal productions ! 

It is well known that Sir Walter Scott was a fervent admirer 
and friend of Washington Irving. His letter, warmly com- 
mending the efforts of our celebrated countryman, published last 
year in a daily journal of high authority,! expressed the ardor of 
the Baronet's esteem and respect for the author of Knickerbocker. 
He also applauded him, publicly, in Peveril of the Peak. We 
regret to say, that our critic has as contemptuous an idea of Sir 
Walter's opinions, as of his works. We can best show how 
widely he differs from the author of Waverley, respecting Irving, 
by quoting liis opinions of that writer, as contained in the Phila- 
delphia Monthly Review. In that periodical he speaks of Geof- 

* So unbounded is the popularity of one of these very novels; so strong the hold 
which it has taken upon the general reverence; that a large and flourishing town 
has arisen where the scene was laid. Its crowded streets are rife with bustle and 
animation, and its hotels thronged continually with visitors. Had it not been for 
tlie genius of Scott, the place would be at this moment a rural waste. 

t The New- York American. 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 27& 

frey Crayon as a scribbler of ' skip-along, trim-tlie hop, popinjay 
prose ; whose Sketch Book abounds with lieavij, disagreedjle 
matter, betraying throughout little merit but imitation.' Those 
portions which the world has decided to be the best and most 
graphic, are pronounced ' absolutely sULj, fit only for the pages 
of two-penny primers, to amuse children.' The utmost credit 
conceded to Geoffrey, is ' that his productions may possibly be- 
guile a dull hour, or please a blue stocking ; but farther than this 
the critic can recognise no merit in them. With true Hibernian 
simplicity, he asks respecting these eminent works : ' What les- 
son do they teach ? What information do they convey ? What 
impression do they make V and adds : ' We can not see their 
value.' He confesses that they are popular and successful ; but 
he imputes the cause to the bribery and corruption of the Edin- 
burgh and London reviewers, by the booksellers, to help Irving 
along! 

A very general, though it would seem erroneous impression, 
has prevailed, and is still cherished, both in Europe and America, 
with regard to the style of Irving. Ripe scholars and real critics, 
everywhere, have given their suffrages in favor of this style, as pos- 
sessing quiet sweetness and ease ; pure as the Latin in 'Augustus' 
golden Age,' or the English, in the Elizabethan. But these men 
have been all in the wrong. Our Longinus can see, in this far- 
famed style, neither comeliness nor grace. He protests that ' it 
reminds him of a boy moving awhvardly on stilts, who is strain- 
ing every nerve to prevent a downfall !' 

Next to Washington Irving, in the condemnatory estimation of 
our critic, comes James Femmore Cooper, who seems a 
peculiarly obnoxious culprit in the view of his judge. Fearful 
that Cooper would supplant some of his own sublime novels, 
then in process of manufacture, he pounced upon his rival right 
greedily. He damned ' The Pioneers' at once, by calling it 
' unwieldly, slovenly, ungrammatical,' and insufferable ; and ' as a 
story, entirely destitute of interest.' ' The Pilot' suffered very 
nearly the same fate. These works, however, yet survive, and 
the reputation of the author has recovered in a measure from the 
cruel and awful blow thus bestowed upon its integrity. 

The popular poets of the Union did not escape the visitations 
of our Reviewer. He finished Halleck, in a few words, by 
pronouncing him an inveterate doggerelist ; ' a man capable of 
throwing the most common and contemptible ideas into metre.' 
Percival suffers in the same pillory. So great is the furor of 
the critic in relation to this gendeman, that he delivers himself in 
verse. We hope the reader will excuse the profanity. It is a 



280 PROSE iMISCELLANIES. 

way the reviewer has of his own, and we give his lines verbatim : 

' As for our poets, d n them, one and all, 

Except the megrim-haunted Percival ; 
For his are lays that suit the Theban taste, 
By sense unburthened, nor by music graced.' 

In further discussing Percival's merits, this literary Daniql 
takes occasion to remark, that the charm, both of prose and po- 
etry, is simplicity; and he illustrates this charm as follows: 
' Mr. Percival would seem to think that harmony of cadence and 
musical numbers were mere incumbrances upo?), the wild freedom 
with which the nine deities should be jJcrmitted to drag us through 
all the entanglements and confusions of an ill-sorted, unconnected, 
and heterogeneous mass of cogitatio?is, conglomerated into 07ie in- 
definable collection, by the wottdrous instrmnentality of that mighty 
father of discordance and grotesque originality, known by the 
name of haphazard.'' Hei'e is the prose style of this lover of 
simplicity ! 

It gives us pleasure to turn from cast-oiF bards, to a poet who 
has won the suffrages of our critic. In a review of the ' Moun- 
tain Muse,' (a crude, youthful production, now forgotten, and of 
which its amiable author, Mr. Bryan, of Alexandria, is heartily 
ashamed,) he says, ' This poem, though long, manifests an im- 
mense genius, equal to that of Byron or Percival. In the tuneful 
movement of his strains, Mr. Bryan is much their superior.' 

It may well be supposed that all these consistent specimens of 
acumen did their author no credit. He was derided by the best 
writers throughout the country. The ridicule he excited, awa- 
kened his angry muse ; he buried his rowels in his Pegasus, and 
' rode in mud.' We doubt whether the most phrensied effusions 
of Nat. Lee are wilder than the doggerels composed by our au- 
thor, in reply to his critics. But as some of his own brain-born 
progeny were just then extant, policy whispered him that he 
should conciliate these high authorities in his favor. His novel 
of the Wilderness had appeared. He had transported copies of 
it to the North American Review, and was looking with painful 
anxiety to see them duly lauded. His eulogies upon that work, 
therefore, were cordial in the extreme. His Review teemed 
with its praise. We can only find room for the following sen- 
tences : 

' The North American is one of the fairest Reviews of the day. It has al- 
ways advanced something of its own, to prove that it could be boldly original 
when it pleased. On the whole, we have found a spirit of candor and a 
vein of good sense, generally to pervade the work, which induces us to es- 
teem it one of the most useful publications of the age.' 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 281 

Whether the North American Review appeared sooner than 
its eulogist expected, we know not ; but it reached Philadelphia 
before his monthly went to press. It contained a notice of the 
Wilderness ; but alas ! it was such a one as the author was not 
prepared to see. The Reviewer, after a few judicious remarks 
as to what ought to constitute an American novel, thus analyzes 
the Wilderness : 

'By casting an eye over these pages, it will be seen at a glance, that the 
art of writing an American novel is neither more nor less than the art of 
describing, under American names, such scenes as are in no respect Ameri- 
can, peopling them with adventurers from all quarters of the globe, except 
America, with a native or two here and there, acting as no American ever 
acts, and talking a language which on the other side of the water may pass 
for American simply because it is not English. Thus the chief dramatis 
persoTKS of the Wilderness are a Scotch Irishman, (by which we mean an 
Irishman who talks Scotch,) an American Irishman, (by which we mean an 
Irishman born in America,) with an Irish Irishman, (by which we mean 
Paddy himself, ) for his servant ; a sort of mad Indian, who turns out to be 
a Frenchified Scotchman ; together with General Washington, and a few 
other mere nondescripts. The plot is carried on by means of the wars of 
the last century, between the French and English settlers of our western 
wilderness, and the loves of Gen. Washington, who plays the double part of 
Romeo among the ladies, and Alexander the Great among the Indians, 
with signal success.' 

After describing some of those lusus natura. characters with 
which the Wilderness abounds, and giving a shght insight into 
its undefinable plot, the Reviewer proceeds : 

' But it is time to introduce another hero, who acts a most conspicuous 
part in the progress of the Tale. Upon the return of Mr. Adderly (one of 
the heroes) to Philadelphia, for the purpose of giving an account of himself 
to the Ohio company, the governor of Virginia despatches Mr. George 
Washington, who is spoken of as ' a very respectable looking young man,' 
on an embassy to the French government at Fort de Boeuf, to demand an 
explanation of the recent outrages committed by his people on the Indians, 
at their instigation, against the British settlers. Not long after, as the her- 
oine and Miss Nancy Frazier were sitting under a tree together, as roman- 
tically as possible. Miss Nancy listening, and Miss Maria reading, ' with a 
tenderness and pathos of manner which showed that her whole soul was en- 
wrapt with the delightful strains in which tlie poet of the seasons has told 
his sweetest tale :' 

' Maria had just pronounced the following exquisite lines : 

' He saw her charming, but he saw not half 
The charms her down-cast modesty concealed,' 

when Nancy happening to direct her attention to one side, perceived a white 
man (the reader should bear in mind that Washington was a white man !) 
leaning against a tree, scarce three yards distant. She immediately started 
to her feet in surprise, crying out : 

' Oh ! Maria ! here is a white stranger !' 
This ' white stranger' was Washington. The ladies shortly 



282 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

after escorted him to their house. Here they placed feed before 
the Father of his Country, in the shape of cakes and methegUn. 
The author makes Washington eat merely to gratify the ladies, 
one of whom asks him, with great tenderness of manner, why he 
does not ' use' more of her victuals ? After this, Washington 
becomes very intimate with Miss Frazier ; delivers long speech- 
es to her whenever a chance offers ; fights Indians and makes 
love, ' off and on,' and finally ascertains that Miss Frazier is en- 
gaged. The North American Reviewer gracefully sums up these 
and ten thousand other improbable adventures, such as Washing- 
ton's dancing jigs at parties ; dressing in the character of an In- 
dian chief, with leggins, porcupine quills, etc., and keeping noc- 
turnal appointments, while, to use the words of the author, ' the 
earth was wrapt in a tolerably thick mantle of darkness J' The 
Review is perfectly fair ; none of the incidents are distorted, and 
the ridicule is natural. Its humor and justice were universally 
acknowledged. 

This article changed the opinions of the author of the Wilder- 
ness, respecting the North American Review, at once. Stung 
by the ridicule which the paper on his work excited, and panting 
for satisfaction, he came out, in the self-same number containing 
the plaudits that we have quoted, with the subjoined appendix. 
It is the most notable specimen of word-eating on record : 

'DEGENERACY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.' 

* In the leading article of our present number, we complimented this Re- 
view for the honesty which it had hitherto displayed in its animadversions 
on authors. When we committed that compliment to paper, we were far 
from expecting that we should so soon have to change our opinion. The 
sheet containing it, however, was hardly printed off, when the Review for 
the present quarter fell into our hands, and afforded decisive and melan- 
choly proof that it no longer continued the honest and able journal of criti- 
cism we have so long esteemed it!' 

Pursuing this topic in the same number, this author asks, with 
a feeling of injured self-complacency : ' To what principle in hu- 
man nature are we to ascribe this ill-natured feeling of the critics ? 
It is to envy ; it is to a dread of being surpassed in literary repu- 
tation !' 

The ' degenerate' article of the North American Review fin- 
ished our critic as an author. The feebleness of his inventions, 
the emptiness of his pretensions, and his utter ignorance of every 
attribute calculated to make a real American novel, were fully 
established. His self-esteem, however, was insatiable ; and so 
novel after novel oozed from his cerebellum, and fell dead-born 
from the press ! Finally he began to fancy that romance was 
not his/orte, and renewed his suit with the Nine. 



AMEEICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 283 

On this point of evidence in his literary history, we feel com- 
pletely posed. We are surrounded with gems of various waters ; 
we are in a wilderness of flowers ; and how shall we cull them ? 
We feel like Franklin's little Philosopher, with the superfluous 
apples. Our author has written on all subjects ; on Ireland, and 
the far West ; on the Sun, and also the Moon ; on land and sea, 
arvorum et sidera cceli. Our only method is to plunge at once 
into this vast collection of themes, and select the best. As the 
present month is particularly patriotic in its associations, we com- 
mence with the following quatrains. They came out of the au- 
thor's mind, on account of seeing some ladies ' fetching a walk,' 
one fourth of July. We have only room for fragments. The 
reader is desired to note the numerous jpossessives in the first 
verse, and the blending of past and present in the other stanza. 
Well was it written on the glorious Fourth. It celebrates the 
Union of the Tenses : 

' Columbia's fair, a lovely train, 

Ail ardent in your country's cause ; 
With glowing hearts ye join the strain, 

That sings the birth of freedom's laws. 

a « * * 

' Dependent on a stranger's will, 

Your sires long owned a tyrant lord, 
Their wrongs on wrongs increasing still, 
While tyrants no relief afford.' 

There are two qualities strikingly manifest in the critic's metre ; 
namely, his rhyming words, and a peculiar system of joining a 
whole line together with matrimonial hyphens. In an effusion on 
Early Scenes, he gives us the subjoined lines. It is not for us 
to instruct so able a poet in the art of verse ; but we make bold 
to suggest, that if the o were out of 'joy,' in the annexed stanza, 
its rhythmus would be considerably eased : 

' For then, if ills or fears invade. 

The lightsome spirit bids them fly ; 
And then th' impressions strong are made, 
Of ne'er to-be-forgotten-joy.' 

The quality exhibited in this last line, to wit, that of compound 
compression, by means of the conjunctive hyphen, is beyond all 
praise. We know nothing to exceed it, save the remark of the 
Morning Post, in Horace Smith's Rejected Addresses, where 
the people are informed that ' they may expect soon to be sup- 
phed with vegetables, in the in -general -stewed -with -cabbage- 
stalks - but - on - Saturday - night- lighted - up - with - lamps market 
of Covent Garden.' 

It is perhaps in the elegiac stanza that our critic's poetry runs 



284 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

the smoothest. Witness the following, from a long and a strong 
strain, near the grave of a rural poet in Ireland. The rhyme is 
ineffably grand. The only improvement that could be proposed, 
would be to spell the last word in the first line, desarts, instead 
of the present mode. We think it might give the metre a bene- 
fit, but we make the suggestion with profound diffidence : 

' Turn to your hut, the falling roof deserts — 
There genius long her darling will deplore ; 
His country owned him as — a man of parts — 
She owned him such — but — ah ! she did no more !' 

No man is fonder than our author of a strain. It is a constant 

operation with him. Thus : 

' to the Indian shines the gem in vain, 

The richest product of his native fields, 
The tiger crushes with regardless strain, 
The loveliest flower the sylvan desert yields.' 

Now we are not intimate with wild animals, having but a slight 
menagerie acquaintance with them : but we believe the tiger must 
be a weaker beast than naturalists are aware of, if he is obliged 
to strain much in crushing a flower. 

Here comes a strain in another verse ; or rather a verse in an- 
other strain : 

' Now to the lonely wood or desert vale. 
With lengthened stride, he hurries o'er the plain ; 

And mutters to the wind his wayward tale, 
Or chants abrupt, a discontented strain.^ 

This, be it remembered, is the gait of a musing, melancholy 
bard. Now, the walk of a thoughtful man is solemn and slow. 
He gives his pensive fancies to the air beneath a beech at noon- 
tide, or he saunters in listless idleness along. Who but our au- 
thor would represent him, ' locomoting' on a long, dog-trot over 
the bogs of his neighborhood, or going ahead hke the famous 
steam-boat of Davy Crockett's, that jumped all the sawyers in 
the Mississippi? 

An amatory effusion, addressed by this writer to a virgin of 
his acquaintance, commences thus : 

' Maid of the lovely-rolling eye !' 

In truth, he appears always to have preferred Venus to Miner- 
va, and a defective education was the result, which is every- 
where exhibited in his writings. He tells us that he used to 
throw his books to the dogs, 

' and mingling in the sprightly train, 

In many a gambol, scoured the plain.' 

Indeed he is candid enough to say, expressly : 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 285 

* I boldly shunned the school. 
And scorning all distracting rule, , 

Tlie dreaded master's voice behind 
I thought I heard in every wind.'' 

A person conversant with the writings of Gray, might fancy 
a kind of plagiarism here, from the following lines in the Ode to 
Eton College, where, speaking of school-boys, he sings : 

' still as they run, they look behind — 

They hear a voice in every wind,' etc. 

But we will be merciful. The similitude is merely one of the 
thousand and nine strange coincidences with common English 
authors, in which all the verses of this very origi7ial writer 
abound. In this particular instance he was excusable for ima- 
gining that he heard a voice in the wind, and for saying so in 
his rhymes, since his stolen relaxation was very suspicious. He 
went, he says, to meet a young woman, 

' with charms divine that first could move, 

And fire my youthful soul to love, 
And show the hawthorn in the mead 
To whose well-known, concealing shade 
In evenings cool we oft would stray.' 

He remarks, also, that being thus cosily situated, under the 
hawthorn aforesaid, they concluded ' to hring the vale to witness 
their tale,' and that ' she was Jtind, and he was blest.'' Particu- 
lars are omitted. It is possible that this is the same maid whom 
he immortalizes in another production, and to whom comfort is 
administered, just as the twain are leaving Ireland for Philadel- 
phia, in the following affectionate and hopeful Hnes : 

' We need not grieve now, our friends to leave now, 

For Erin's fields we again shall see ; 
But first a lady, in Pennsylvania, 
IMy dear, remember thou art to be !' 

Here, capricious in luxury, we must pause, and turn to an- 
other department in which our critic has excelled ; namely, in the 
I'ratna. 

His first tragedy was called ' The Usurper,' and although it was 
a most deplorable failure, yet the author strenuously contended 
that \(i was no fault of his. Everything that benevolence could 
sugg6»t was done to make it live, and to resuscitate it after death ; 
but in vain. Prometheus himself could not have revived it, with 
all the authentic fire of Jove. To herald its advent, every pos- 
sible exertion was made in the newspapers, under the immediate 
direction of the author. How many were the free admissions, 
how numberless the antecedent puffs which he caused to be 



286 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

caused to be manufactured, or else produced himself ; all setting 
forth, in sugared phraseology, that ' our gifted fellow-townsman, 
Dr. McH***Y,' would appear as a dramatist on such a night ! 
It was even publicly hinted, by a friendly journalist, at our 
author's special solicitation, that ' it was understood that the 
seats were nearly all taken, and that all who desired to witness 
its first representation, must make immediate application at the 
box office !' But alas ! the tragedy was inflicted but twice upon 
an exceedingly sparse audience, and then expired. The cause 
of its untimely demise was explained at length to the public at 
the time, by the author, and proved to be, that the actors were 
jealous of the writer's reputation ! ' Sir,' said he to an unfortunate 
gendeman whom he held by the button in Chestnut-street, ' the 
decline of this production was principally owing to one of the 
supernumeraries. He was despatched to secure a distinguished 
prisoner, one of the heroes of the play. When he returned 
without him, he should have replied thus to the question, 
* Where's your prisoner '?' 

' My lord, we caught him, and we held him long ; 

But as d d fate decreed, he 'scaped our grasp, 

And fled.' 

Now, sir, this is poetry ; it stirs the blood, and makes an au- 
dience feel very uneasy. And how do you think that elegant 
passage was spoken ? Why, it was done in this wise : 

Quest. — ' Well, have you catch'd the prisoner? 

Ans. — 'Yes, Sir, we catch'd him, but we could not 
Hold him — and he's off.' 

' That very passage, my friend, together with the pre-disposed 
stupidity of the audience, ruined my tragedy ; and it is lost to 
the stage.' 

But these reverses did not damp the vanity of our author. 
Though the public condemned and laughed, yet his familiar 
friends looked upon all the works that he had made, and pro- 
nounced them good. Thus, the Usurper, though dead and bur- 
ied, was duly glorified in the American Quarterly Review. A 
labored analysis of its incomprehensible plot was given, and ' its 
sweetness, tenderness, and siinplicity ,'' set forth by extracts ! 

Animated by these partial plaudits, our dramatist turned his 
attention to comedy. Feeling indignant at the unbending Mor- 
decais of the critical world, he determined to crucify them ill, 
emblematically. iSo he wrote a piece called ' Love and Poetry.' 
This lived two nights. One passage only is preserved in the 
memory of the hearers. The hero, a poet, was made to commit 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 2S7 

a highway robbery ; and his poor old father, lamenting the in- 
fatuated criminality of his boy, exclaims in a burst of parental smi- 
guish : 

* Alas ! my brain is wild — my heart is sad ; 

And, as 't is troublesome to tarry here, 

Where every thing reminds me of my son, 

I think, upon reflection, I will go 

And live in the Western Country /' 

On the second representation, at the theatre in Walnut-street, 
the quondam Circus, there were about a dozen persons in the 
boxes, perhaps twenty \a the pit, and one enterprising Cyprian in 
the third tier. The piece was listened to with great solemnity. 
It was written for amusement, but the author had the fun all to 
himself. So irresistibly comic was it, that there was scarcely a 
smile during the whole performance. The friends of the writer, 
unwilling to be ' in at the death' of his comedy, had staid away. 
They knew it would be dismal to look upon the bantling of a 
fellow-townsman, in articulo mortis, and they spared themselves 
the trial. The curtain descended ; and sundry peanut-eating pit- 
lings, (who lay along on several benches, each occupying two or 
three,) made an unanimous call for the author. He arose from 
his solitude in the second box, second tier, where he had en- 
sconced himself, and said : 

' Ladies and Gentlemen : I thank you for this triumphant mark of esteem 
and honor. It is not on account of pecuniary considerations that I thank 
you, for I perceive by a glance at the house, that the avails will not be ex- 
tensive ; but ladies and gentlemen, I am thankful for the glory,'' (and here 
he smote his breast with sonorous emphasis,) ' the undying glory which I 
feel at this moment. Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you all.' 

This was the last of our critic's dramatic productions. He 
has since attended to the linen trade, and occupied the stool of 
poetical criticism in the American Quarterly Review. All the 
long, dull articles in that periodical, from first to last, on the sub- 
ject of American poetry, have been from his pen. The drift of 
them generally is, to show that there is not and can not be such 
a thing as American verse, and that in this particular the only 
way to succeed, is to abandon the idea of any independent litera- 
ture of our own, and trust for that commodity to trans-atlantic 
producers. 

We can not enumerate the various critiques in which this same 
sweet bard has destroyed all the chief minstrels of the land ; but 
the ideas of the American Quarterly with respect to the merits of 
Bryant, are too peculiar to be lost. It is true, that they differ 
in the matter from the recorded opinions of every eminent Review 
in Europe ; but then taste is taste, and there is no accounting for 



288 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

it. The productions of Bryant are esteemed by this Philadel- 
phia quarterly as utterly devoid of any qualities to excite the 
reader's curiosity or interest his heart. ' Page after page,' it 
says, ' may be perused, if the reader has su&c'ient jjatience, with 
dull placidity, or rather perfect unconcern, so that the book shall 
be laid aside without a single passage having been impressed 
upon the mind as worthy of recollection.'' 

Now, when opinions like these are advanced, in utter opposi- 
tion to the whole world of letters, in defiance of taste and sense, 
the question naturally arises. Who judges thus foolishly ? This, 
as far as the American Quarterly Review is concerned, we have 
endeavored to show in the foregoing pages, and in so doing, have 
set down naught in malice. The choice morsels of biography 
tliat we have presented, are inseparable from the works of our 
author ; they are, moreover, notorious. The moral of all is, that 
our literature has been long enough degraded by alien intruders, 
who have neither learning nor genius, and by those enemies of the 
most dignified interests of the country, who have aided and abet- 
ted their shallow pretensions. Were it likely that a discontinu- 
ance of the evil is at hand, we might be content to let such liter- 
ary empirics make themselves as ridiculous as they please. But 
when, because anonijmoiis, their bad taste infects even a limited 
number of readers, their influence becomes offensive. The di- 
vine Plato, in his immortal dialogue of Protagoras, tells us, that 
in the arts it is only the opinions of those who are themselves 
gifted and skilful, that ought to be respected. And what kind 
of skill, by our present unbiassed showing, has been evinced by 
this Critic ? He is a walking synonym for a failure, in every- 
thing. We are told on good authority, though the work has not 
yet reached us, that in the last number of the American Quar- 
terly, our Aristarchus is at his work again. He confesses the 
general popularity of several American poets, but lays the blame 
on the press and the public. He thinks that both should be 
slow to commend, and be careful not to be gulled. Such advice 
comes with miserable grace from the author. His insatiate hun- 
ger for praise, and his continual supplications for it, of the edi- 
torial fraternity of Philadelphia, are proverbial. And, as to de- 
ceiving the public, we place him at our bar, and ask him to es- 
tablish his own innocence. Did he not once determine to take 
the general applause by storm, and on the publication of one of 
his unhappy novels, repeatedly stop the press, and cause second^ 
third, and fourth editions to be inserted in the title-page of the 
same impression i Was not the thii-d edition for sale at the 
book-stores before the Jirst was bound ? Was not the same 



AMERICAN POETS, AND THEIR CRITICS. 2S9 

system adopted with several of his other works, the plagiarized 
' Pleasures of Friendship,' especially ? Any Philadelphia book- 
seller can answer these queries, much more readily than our 
critic would like to admit them. It is only by such modes of 
grasping at ephemeral praise, through trickery, coupled with ad- 
vance eulogies and surmises in newspapers : 

-' e r augurio, a la bugia, 



E chiromanti, ed ogni fallace arte, 
Sorte, iiidoviui, e falsa profezia,' 

that this critic has ever been honored, even with ridicule. All 
his articles have proceeded from the ignoblest private motives, 
either of hope or of retaliation. Thus, the argument spoken of as 
contained in his last Review ; namely, that we have yet no great, 
long poem ; no big book of American metre, and that there is 
now a want of it ; is only to herald a manuscript volume of his, 
in some nineteen 'books,' which he has just been obliged to send 
to London, because the publishers on this side of the water can 
not see its merits. It has been shown about very generally, and 
we learn, is similar to Emmons' Fredoniad ; only of greater 
length. It is y'clept ' The Antediluvians ;' and we venture to 
say, if any hapless London bookseller is seduced into its pubh- 
cation, that the first copy which reaches America will be lauded 
in a certain quarter, under the author's immediate supervision, 
as a work ' unparalled, unpaired,' equal to Klopstock or Milton 
in sublimity, superior to Pope in harmony, and a touch beyond 
anything ever produced in the United States, for ' sweetness, 
tenderness, and simplicity !' We wait patiently for its coming. 

Note. — The effect of this article was a decided one. It put an end, from that 
time forth, to the literary career of the writer whose productions it exposed. The 
work here referred to was subsequently published in London by the author, but it 
dropped still-born from the press. Christopher North, indeed, revived a copy 
of it for a sort of galvanic experiment in criticism, which established an elec- 
trical ' communication' with the risible nerves of his tifty thousand readers. The 
critique commenced, if we rightly remember, with these flattering words: <To 
compare these two volumes with a couple of bottles of small beer, would be greatly 
to belie that fluid !' Editor. 

19 



290 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



AN OLD MAN'S RECORDS. 

When the sober and mellow days of Autumn are passing by 
me with a melancholy smile, I love to go back upon the pinions 
of memory, to the scenes and enjoyments of other years. I 
joy to retrace my footsteps along the journey of life ; to call up 
in long review the sunny scenes that flitted from my vision, like 
the gay but withered leaves of the departed Summer, which I 
now behold from my window, floating with a low and mournful 
whisper on the breeze. I love to call old friends and old events 
to mind ; to linger in thought by the low mansions of dust, in 
which are dwelling in silent repose the forms 1 have loved, wait- 
ing to awake at the resurrection, in the light of inunortality and 
the likeness of God. I gaze again, as from some lofty eminence, 
upon those glorious realms of my early imagination, once peo- 
pled with forms and scenes of surpassing beauty, and redolent 
of the sweet odors of delight. Such are my thoughts at this 
calm and solemn season. The chilling influences which are 
usually allotted by men to the octogenarian, are not with me. 
This Sabbath of the Year descends upon me like some holy and 
heavenly spirit, with gentle voices, and on dove-like wings ; un- 
til, as I repaint the faded pictures of the past, widi the magic 
dyes of fancy and of memory, I gaze again upon them with a 
feeling of honest and refreshing rapture, or a not unpleasing sad- 
ness. Age, unlike the Idleness of the great moralist, has not 
yet wreathed for me its garland of poppies, or poured into my 
cup the waters of oblivioji. I renew, in thought and feeling, the 
joys and the sorrows of by-gone times. A holy tenderness 
creeps warmly into my heart ; and as I approach the great gate 
which opens from time into eternity, I turn to survey the vistas 
through which my wayfaring has lain, as the traveller pauses at 
sun-set to look back in the waning light upon the dim and distant 
landscape that he has traversed. 

This comparison of life to a journey, reminds me how pleasant 
it is to overlook the records of modern pilgrims, in Pays cf Outre 
Me?: I compare what they see, with what I have seen on the 
same extended theatre, in times long past ; ere yet the school- 
master was abroad, as now ; when Johnson thundered his pomp- 
ous anathemas against American independence ; when Pitt and 
Burke wielded their tremendous eloquence in the popular assem- 
bly, and ' France got drunk with blood to vomit crime.' Those 
were days of interest ; of deep, stern, and awful import ; and 



AN OLD M A X ' S R K C IJ K 1) S . 291 

I witnessed them as they passed, on the very arena from which 
they borrowed their glory and their gloom. 1 have seen the fatal 
axe descend upon the heads of a Marie Antoinette and a Louis 
Capet; I have witnessed the tumults of a revolution, the thou- 
sand excitements of political life in a departed age ; and as at * a 
theatre or scene,' have beheld those great actors play their parts 
in the vast drama of existence, who are now^ quietly reposing, 
some in tombs of honor, and others in vaults of infamy. My 
youth was spent abroad, at a period when every object was to me 
new and impressive ; when^the contrasts betw'een the new world 
and the old were large and various ; and when my country, then 
glimmering like a faint star in the West, had scarcely began to 
clothe herself in that meridian brightness wherewith she is now 
invested. 

I passed the best portions of my early manhood in France 
and England. This foreign sojourn was in days lang, lang syne ; 
and no one can tell the enthusiasm which filled to overflowing 
my truly American bosom, as I heard, by slow- and uncertain ar- 
rivals, how the current of free principles was rolHng onward in 
my native land. I used daily to read, with stormy indignation, 
those journals which teemed w^ith obloquy upon the ' Rebels' of 
the New World, even after the war-cloud had ceased to ' muffle 
up the sun' of liberty. In all things I was, from principle, pro- 
fession, education, and habit, an uncompromising repubHcan. In 
the best sense of the word, thank Heaven ! I am so still. 

As I cast my eye backward over that period in my humble 
history, and the scenes it embraced, I bethink me of the great 
truth in the words of the wise man of Jerusalem : ' The thing 
that hath been, is that which shall be ; and that which is done, 
is that which shall be done; there is nothing new under the sun.' 
The principal causes of common events in our country at pres- 
ent, are much like those of Europe then ; there were mobs and 
murders, and desperate adventures among the debased and the 
passion-led ; but among the majority of the people there was 
paramount a sincere respect or reverence for the laws. 

But the affections and frailties of mortals alike impress all 
ages. ' Nature is — nature,' says some profound ' saw'-yer, and 
its attributes, at one period or another, are always the same. 1 
have seen offenders against the laws lay down their lives at home 
and abroad ; 1 have heard the shouts of infuriated multitudes on 
both sides of the Atlantic ; and I have drawn from all a mean- 
ing and a moral, of which the principal is this : that while in our 
own country there exist no external excuses for crime, it is often 
in Europe the dire result of positive, unescapeable compulsion. 



292 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

When i say this, I speak of course of those crimes which are 
begotten of Indigence and Ignorance; crimes which may as it 
were be naturally looked for in a population like that of the 
great capital of England, where it is asserted that sixty thousand 
unfortunate persons arise every morning, from hap-hazard lodg- 
ings in by-places, without a morsel of bread for their lips, or a 
place to lay their hapless forms when the evening draws nigh. 

The first execution that I ever witnessed, was in London. I 
was also, by accident, a spectator of the dreadful deed which 
brought the wretched criminal to the gallows. I proceed to give 
a description of both the culprit and his act ; of the causes which 
made him the former, and brought about the latter. All the 
scenes of this extraordinary and romantic catastrophe arise to my 
mind as vividly as if they had happened but yesterday. 

On the evening of the seventh of April, 1779, I left my lodg- 
ings in the Strand, at an early hour, for Covent Garden Theatre. 
The house was filling as I sought my box. The play was Love 
in a Village, and the cast for the night embraced some of the 
then most popular performers of the day. There was a contin- 
ual influx of beauty and fashion, until the dress circles assumed 
an appearance of absolute splendor. Plumes waved ; jewelled 
hands lifted the golden-bound glass to the voluptuous eye; and 
all the pomp and circumstance of a brilliant auditory garnished 
the scene. One ' taken' box still remained without its occu- 
pants ; but at the close of the first act, they entered. A middle- 
aged, but fine-featured and cheerful-looking gentleman, with an 
Irish physiognomy, handed into her place a lady of such sur- 
passing loveliness, that, the first glance being taken, I could 
scarcely withdraw from her the patronage of my eye. She w^as 
dressed in the magnificent fashion of the time ; her hair parting 
off from her temples and forehead like a wave, and falling in two 
large masses on either side of her polished neck. Her brow 
was high and clear ; her eyes of heaven's own azure ; her nose 
had the fair lines and nostril curve of Greece ; her cheeks and 
chin softly dimpled, and her ruby lips wearing ' a smile, the 
sweetest that ever was seen.' The dazzling creature took her 
place, and adjusted her scarf with inimitable gracefulness. Her 
dress, I well remember, was in the height of taste ; the white 
lace ruffles of her short sleeves terminating at the elbows, and 
showing the perfect symmetry of her hand and arm, as she plied 
her pretty fan, or peered through her glass at the Pride of the 
Village. I was quite overcome with admiration. 
' Pray who can that be?' said I to a friend. 
' What a question !' was the reply. ' How ignorant you are ! 



AN OLD man's records. 293 

* Not to know her, argues yourself unknown.' That is the splen- 
did Miss Reay, the {air friend of Lord Sandwich, who is her 
yrotcctur. He has given her the protection that vultures give to 
lambs. She has borne him two or three lovely, cherub-like chil- 
dren. He is twice her senior in years, has robbed her of her 
best treasure, and it is strongly whispered that she loves him not. 
When in public, as at present, she usually appears without him.' 

I did not prolong my inquiries, for the lady herself attracted 
my sole attention, to the utter disregard of the play. As 1 was 
gazing in that direction, I saw a person standing at the door of a 
box near by, whom at the first glance I took for a maniac. His 
eyes glared with unsettled wildness ; his face was pale as death, 
and the damp hair hung in heavy threads over his forehead. He 
was looking at Miss Reay with an expression in which love and 
hate seemed struggling for empire. He was well-sized, hand- 
some, and of goodly presence. He was dressed in black. I 
never beheld a countenance in which so much mental excitement 
was depicted. His livid lips moved as if in a kind of prayer : 
he would sometimes press his hand against his forehead or his 
heart ; and finally, after a long and lingering look at the lady I 
have mentioned, raised his handkerchief hurriedly to his eyes, 
and disappeared. 

I never remember to have passed an evening in such perfect 
abstraction as this. The intoxication of beauty overpowered 
me ; and so rapt had been my attention, that I scarcely knew 
when the play was over. I hurried out, as soon as the curtain 
fell, and stepping to the Piazzas, waited to see the fair creature 
enter her carriage. She passed by me, with her attendant, his 
epaulettes glittering in the lamp-light. A kind of enchantment 
possessed me, and a foreboding that some doleful disaster was 
about to happen. I was moving onward, and stood within a few 
feet of the lady, when I heard the loud and stunning report of a 
heavily-charged pistol. Another followed, and shrieks and 
groans resounded along the arches. I rushed toward the spot 
whence the deadly sounds proceeded, and found the brilliant 
being whom I have described, weltering in her blood. The ball 
had entered her fair forehead, and her vestments were deluged 
with gore. The sight was horrid beyond description. She was 
perfectly dead. I penetrated the crowd that had surrounded the 
murderer. It was the same person whom I had noticed in the 
theatre, and whose looks were so desperate. His face was white 
as snow ; his eyes dilated, and his lips compressed ; but his de- 
meanor evinced a kind of peaceful tranquillity, or dead stupor ; 
the awful calm that follows a tempest of passion. The blood, 



294 PROSE M 1 S I' E L I. A \ I E S . 

and even portions of the brain of his victim were on his sleeve. 
Never shall I forget the terror of that scene ! He had attempted 
immediately after killing -Nliss Reay to destroy his own life ; but 
his murderous weapon failed in its effect, and he stood mute 
before the multitude, a personification of immoveable Horror. 

I returned to my lodgings, but sleep fled from my eye-lids. 
The excitement of fixed attention during the evening, and the 
awful catastrophe I had witnessed, left me in a state of dread, 
and nervous feeling. If I slumbered, my slumbers were not 
sleep, but a continuance of melancholy scenes and impressions. 
Sometimes I fimcied myself the murderer, flying from the sword 
of justice to my own place of abode, and seeking relief upon 
my pillow. It seemed in vain ; for methought, 

That Guilt was the grim cliamberlain 

Who hghted nie to bed, 
And drew my midnight curtains round, 

With fingers bloody red ! 

The next day, all the events which led to the deplorable 
deed I had witnessed, were brought to light. The murderer 
was a young clergi/man named James Ilachnav. He was for- 
merly an officer in one of the British regiments ; and being in- 
vited on one occasion to dine with Lord Sandwich at Hichin- 
brook House, he met Miss Reay, and soon became so despe- 
rately enamoured of her as to weaken his health. He finally, 
more probably for the purpose of being near the object of his 
love, than for any other cause, left the army, took holy orders, 
and obtained the living of Wiverton in Norfolk. 

Perhaps a more affecting and melancholy termination of un- 
lawful love never occurred than this. Miss Reay had little or no 
affection for the nobleman who had so foully wronged her ; and 
the first object of her passion was undoubtedly the young military 
clergyman. In the course of time he completely won her heart, 
and alienated her regard, if any she had, entirely from her first 
lord. A series of letters passed between them for several years, 
printed copies of which are now before me, and some of which, 
or extracts from them, it may not be improper to give. He ul- 
timately removed to Ireland ; and on his return found the heart 
of his versatile mistress changed forever, and in favor of a third 
admirer. While, however, in the mutual ' tempest, torrent, and 
I may say, whirlwind of their jjassion,' while he was in the con- 
stant course of dishonoring the man whose hospitality he had so 
often enjoyed, (if dishonor it may be called under the circum- 
stances,) the epistle=; which the parties addressed to each other 
breathe the very soul of feeling. Never, perhaps, was there a 



AN OLD man's records. 295 

more awful exemplification, than in the case of these short-lived 
lovers, of the truth of Shakspeare's lines : 

' These violent delights have violent ends, 
And in their sweetness die.' 

'Huntingdon, 8th Dec, 1775. 

' To INIiss . Then I release my dear soul from her promise about to- 
day. If you do not see that all which he can claim by gratitude, I doubly 
claim by love, I have done, forever. I would purchase my ha])piness at any 
price but at the expense of yours. Look over my letters, think over my 
conduct, consult your own heart, read these two long letters of your own 
writing, which 1 return you. Then tell me whether we love or not. And 
if we love (as witness both our hearts), shall gratitude, cold gratitude, bear 
away the prize that's due to love like ours ? Shall my right be acknowl- 
edged, and he possess the casket ? Shall I have your soul, and he your 
hand, your lips, your eyes? 

' Gracious God of Love! I can neither write nor think. Send one line, 
half a line, to 

' Your own, own H.' 

This impassioned letter, with others previously sent, induced 
the following reply : 

'H. lOth Dec, '75. 

'To Mr. H . Your two letters of the day before yesterday, and 

what you said to me yesterday, have drove me mad. You know how such 
tenderness distracts me. As to marrying me, that you should not do upon 
any account. Shall the man I value, be pointed at and Iiooted for selling 
himself to a lord for a commission ? * * * My soul is above my situ- 
ation. Beside, I will not take advantage of what may be only, perhaps, 
(excuse me), a youthful passion. After a more intimate acquaintance of 
a week or ten days, your opinion of me might very much change. And 
yet you 7nay love me as sincerely as I 

' But I will transcribe you a verse which I don't believe you ever heard 
me sing, though it's my favorite. It is said to be a part of an old Scottish 
ballad — nor is it generally believed that Lady L. wrote it. It is so descrip- 
tive of our situation, I wept over it like a child, yesterday : 

' I gang like a ghost, and I do not care to spin, 
I fain would think on Jamie, but that would be a sin; 
I must e'en do my best a good wife to be. 
For auld E.obin Gray has been kind to me.' 

' For God's sake let me see my Jamie to-morrow. Your name also is 
Jamie.' 

It would of course be useless for me to follow up these epis- 
tolary details of passion and crime. At my present age, when 
* the hey-day of the blood is cool and humble, and waits upon 
the judgment,' I look upon them as the confessions of two minds 
alienated from reason by temporary madness. Three days after 
the date of the foregoing, the reverend lover wrote thus : 

'■Huntingdon, 13lh Dec, '75. 
♦To Miss . My Life and Soul.' But I will never more use any 



296 PROSE MISCELJ^ANIES. 

more preface of this sort, and I beg you will not. A correspondence begins 
with dear, then my dear, dearest, my dearest, and so on, till, at last, panting 
language toils after lis in vaiu. 

' No language can explam my feelings. Oh, yesterday, yesterday ! Lan- 
guage thou liest! Oh, thou beyond my warmest dreams bewitching ! Are 
you not now convinced that Heaven made us for each other 7 * * » 
Have I written sense ? I know not what I write. 

' Misfortune, I defy thee now! M. loves me, and my soul has its content 
most absolute. No other joy like this succeeds in unknown fate.' 

To say that the whole correspondence is marked on both sides 
with good taste, often with learning, and always with enthusiastic 
but guilty tenderness, is but justice to the memory of the parties. 
In one of his letters, Hackman quotes the following among other 
stanzas, entitled, ' The moans of the forest after the battle of 
Flodden Field :' 

' I have heard a lilting at the ewes' milking, 
A' the lasses lilting before break of day ; 
But now there's a moaning in ilka green loning, 
Since the flowers of the forest are weeded away. 

' At blights in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning, 
Our lasses are lonely, and dowie, and wae ; 
Nae dafling, nae gabbin, but sighing and sobbing, 
Ilka lass lifts her leglin, and hies lier away.' 

During the lover's sojourn in Ireland, he wrote to his mistress, 
and in doing so, spoke unwittingly of pleasant female acquaint- 
ances that he had formed in that kingdom. This, I have reason 
to believe, was the first impulse to her estrangement. Her pre- 
vious letters to him had been overflowing with aflectionate senti- 
ments. In one of them, speaking of her devotion, she says, ' I 
could die, cheerfully, by your hand, I know I could.' The let- 
ter to which I have just alluded, however, provoked the following 

reply : 

'England, 25th June, 1776. 

' To Mr. . Let me give you joy of having found such kind and 

agreeable friends in a strange land. The account you gave me of the lady 
quite charmed me. Neither am / without my friends. A lady from whom 
1 have received particular favors, is uncommonly kind to nie. For the 
credit of your side of the water, she is an Irish woman. Her agreeable 
husband, by his beauty and accomplishments, does credit to this country. 
He is remarkable also for his feelings. 

' Adieu ! This will affect you, I dare say, in the same manner that your 
account affected lar.'' 

This letter, with others that followed it, soon brought Mr. 
Hackman to London. He lodged, on his return, in Cannon's 
Court, and addressed an immediate letter to his mistress. The 
answer returned, purported to come from a female servant, wri- 
ting by the sick bed of her lady, and at her dictation. The 



AN OLD man's records. 297 

epistle was humbly written, and filled with prevarications and 
cold compliments. By degrees, the melancholy truth of the 
lady's estrangement was established. Proof of the most positive 
description was furnished. It drove the lover to despair, and he 
resolved upon self-destruction. Information having been com- 
municated to him at his parsonage in Norfolk, (whither before 
the full proof of his suspicions he had retired,) calculated, to 
awaken every dark surmise, he hastened to London, where 
everything was confirmed. In his first tumultuous resolve for 
self murder, he expressed his fears in a letter to a friend, as 
follows : ' My passions are blood-hounds, and will inevitably tear 
me to pieces. The hand of nature has heaped up every species 
of combustible in my bosom. The torch of love has set the 
heap on fire, and I must perish in the flames. And who is he 
will answer for passions such as mine '? At ])rcscnt, I am inno- 
cent.' His last letter before committing the deed for which he 
suffered an ignominious death, was addressed to a friend, and 
couched in the following terras : 

' 7 (h April, 1779. 

♦ToMr. B. My Dear F . When this reaches you I shall be no 

more, but do not let my unhappy fate distress you too much. I strove 
against it as long as possible, but now it overpowers me. You know where 
my affections were placed ; my having by some means or other lost hers, 
(an idea which ] couid not support,) has driven me to madness. God bless 
you, my dear F . Would I had a sum of money to leave you to con- 
vince you of my great regard ! May Heaven protect my beloved woman, 
and forgive the act which alone could relieve me from a world of misery I 
have long endured I Oh! should it be in your power to do her any act of 
friendship, remember your faithful friend, J. H.' 

In the afternoon of the day on which the preceding letter was 
written, Mr. Hackman took a walk to the Admiralty, from his 
lodgings in St. Martin's Lane, probably to take a last view of 
worldly objects, ere he plunged into the great gulf of Eternity. 
Near the Admiralty, he saw Miss Reay pass in a coach, with 
Signora Galli, an attendant. He rushed into the theatre, in the 
desperate condition I have before described ; and unable to con- 
trol his thick-coming and bitter thoughts, returned to his lodgings, 
where he procured and loaded the pistols, with one of which he 
committed his dreadful crime. In his attempt to kill himself af- 
ter Miss Reay, he was severely wounded. Mr. M'Namara, a 
gentleman who was assisting the lady into the coach, was so 
covered with blood, and filled with horror, that he was seized 
with violent sickness. The mangled remains of the ' Beauty 
once admired,' were conveyed to the Shakspeare tavern, near 
the theatre, to await the coroner's inquest. 



298 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

The unhappy clergyman was conveyed to Newgate, whence 
he addressed the ensuing note to a friend : 

' 8^ April, 1779. 

'To Charles , Esq. I am alive, and she is dead. I shot her and 

not myself. Some of her blood is still upon my clothes. I dont ask you 
to speak to me. 1 don't ask you to look at me. Only come hither, and 
bring me a little poison; such as is strong enough. Upon my knees I beg, 
if your friendship for me ever was sincere, do, do bring me some poison ." 

This was not furnished him, and his trial soon came on. I 
was present. The prisoner sat with his white handkerchief at his 
cheek, his head resting languidly on his hand. His face wore 
the gloomy pallor of the grave. The plea of insanity, put in by 
his counsel, did not avail. When he rose to offer his defence, 
many an eye glistened with the tears of pity. His words, hollow 
and sepulchral in their sound, seemed to come forth without 
breath from his livid lips ; while a large dark spot on his 
forehead seemed like a supernatural seal of ruin. His defence 
was brief, clear, and pointed. In the course of it he said : ' J 
stand here this day the most wretched of human beings ; but I 
protest, with that regard to truth which becomes my situation, 
that the will to destroy her who was ever dearer to me than life, 
was never mine, until a momentary phrensy overcame me, and led 
me to the deed I now deplore. Before this dreadful act, I 
trust nothing will be found in the tenor of my life, which the 
common charity of mankind will not excuse. / have no wish 
to avoid my punishment.' This state of mind prevailed to the 
last. He hungered and thirsted for death. Lord Sandwich ad- 
dressed him anonymously, the note subjoined, to which I annex 
the reply : 

' 17th April, '79. 

' To Mr. Hackman, in Newgate: If the murderer of Miss wishes 

to live, the man he has most injured will use all his interest to procure his 
life.' 

' The Condemned Cell in JSewgate, f 

Saturday Night, 17th April, 1779. I 

' The murderer of her whom he preferred, far preferred, to life, suspects 
the hand from which he has just received such an ofl'er as he neither desires 
nor deserves. His wishes are for death, not for life. One wish he has : 
Could he be pardoned in this world by the man he has most injured ! Oh 
my lord, when I meet her in another world, enable me to tell her, (if de- 
parted spirits are not ignorant of earthly things,) that you forgive us both, 
and that you will be a father to her dear infants! J. H.' 

The rest of his time was passed in a state of mind almost too 
horrible to relate. Among his writings, were such records as 
these : ' Since I wrote my last, I caught myself marching up and 
down my cell, with the step of haughtiness ; hugging myself in, 
my two arms ; and muttering between my grating teeth, What a 



AN OLD MANS RECORDS. 299 

complete ivretch I (wiT ' The clock has just struck eleven. 
The gloominess of my favorite Young's Night Thoughts, which 
was always so congenial to my soul, would have been still 
heightened, had he ever been wretched enough to hear St. Paul's 
clock thunder through the still ear of night, in the condemned 
cells of Neugatc. The sound is truly solemn — it seems the 
sound of death. Oh that it were Death's sound ! .How greed- 
ily would my impatient ears devour it! And yet, but one day 
more. Perturbed spirit! — rest till then!' 

His dreams were tumultuous and dismal. In one vision, he 
saw himself in perdition, and having a distant view of Heaven, 
beheld his adored mistress walking with angels, and looking down 
with a look of peace and joy upon his miseries. She did not 
seem to know of them. ' I could not go to her, nor could she 
come to me : nor did she wish it — there was the curse ! Oh, 
how I rejoiced, how I wept and sobbed with joy, when I awoke 
and found myself in the condemned cell of Ncivgate P 



He met his fate at the scaffold with the firmnesi of despair. 
Only two or three years before, the criminal had attended the 
execution of the celebrated Dr. Dodd. I employ his very de- 
scription of that scene, as a complete simile of that which attend- 
ed his own death, as witnessed by me ; and with it, close the 
melancholy tale. ' At last arrived the fatal moment. The dri- 
ving away of the cart was accompanied by a noise which best 
explained the feelings of the spectators for the sufferer. Did 
you never observe, at the sight or the relation of anything shock- 
ing, that you closed your teeth hard, and drew in your breath 
hard through them, to make a sort of hissing sound ? This was 
done so universally at the fatal moment, that I am persuaded the 
noise must have been heard at a considerable distance. For my 
own part, I detected myself, in a certain manner, accompanying 
his body with my own.' 

' His agony was soon over, and his cold form conveyed to its 
last couch of silence and oblivion.' 



We have been much alarmed of late, by the mobs and dis- 
turbances which have prevailed in some quarters of our Repub- 
lic — but we have never yet experienced anything half so terrific 
as the mobs of Europe. The Bristol Riots, and the Evenne- 
mens de Lyons, must be fresh in all minds ; while some of the 
more remote riots in the British capital stand out like pyramids 
from the general level of ordinary madness and crime. It was 
my hap to see the Great London Riot of 1780, for the instiga- 
tion of which Lord George Gordon was tried for high treason, 



300 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

and left, though acquitted, with a stain upon his name. He was 
the champion of a numerous class of the lower order of Protes- 
tants, who held large meetings in various parts of the metropolis, 
and sent heavy petitions to Parliament, praying for enactments 
against Catholicity. One of these documents, signed by many 
thousands, which was presented by Lord Gordon, was so large 
that it required the united strength of all the officers of the 
House to lift it into the presence of that noble Legislature. 
Though every signature was genuine, they wei*e declared to be 
fictitious, and the petition was treated with contempt. Incensed 
at this imputation, Lord Gordon vowed that he would convince 
Parliament of its error, by bringing up the petitioners m p'ojpria 
persotia, before their representatives and servants. 

He kept his vow ; and at ten o'clock on the next Friday morn- 
ing, several thousands of his petition-signers assembled in St. 
George's Fields, where the noble Lord met them, as a Roman 
general would have done his legions. He directed them to pro- 
ceed to the Parhament House, over the Westminster, Blackfri- 
ar's, and London Bridges. Before this great multitude had 
reached their place of destination, it had doubled its numbers and 
become a mob. Lords, bishops, and archbishops, were made 
objects of popular fury ; cries of ' No Popery !' rang through 
the dusky streets ; carriages were upset, and their occupants 
obliged to escape from the melee, and glide in disguise from roof 
to roof, to which they ascended from dwellings where they sought 
refuge. 

This day was but the beginning of tumult. Like an half- 
cured ulcer on the human form, the riots, when suppressed in 
one quarter of the town, would break forth in others. Saturday 
and Sunday witnessed the most dreadful excesses. Indeed, the 
mob was quite uncontrollable, and yet the horrid Saturnalia had 
but just begun. The rioters convened in immense force on Mon- 
day, the anniversary of the king's birth-day. Efforts had been 
made, but ineffectually, to suppress them ; large rewards were 
offered for the apprehension of the ring-leaders among the law- 
less bands, who had burned several Catholic chapels, in different 
sections of the capital. A few offenders were secured, but the 
fiame was spreading, and the great body of miscreants rioted on. 
The events of Tuesday were dreadful. The mob made a 
desperate attack upon the Newgate prison, mounting in swarms 
over the walls, and besieging the cells, (where a few riotous prin- 
cipals were confined,) with pick-axes and hammers. The chapel, 
and the house of the keeper, were soon destroyed. This oc- 
curred between six and nine o'clock in the evening. The loud 
alarms and rising Hames drew me to the spot. The fire had 



AN OLD man's records. 301 

then communicated to the wards and cells, from which the af- 
frighted prisoners rushed into the yard, where many of them 
were supplied with liquor by the mobocracy, and went yelling 
and shouting around their enlarged boundary of exercise, with 
the fury of uncaged tigers. Many who were under sentence of 
death were among. the liberated prisoners. The new prison at 
Clerkenwell was also stormed and broken open, and all the in- 
mates set free. Many of them, grateful for their sudden and un- 
expected discharge, entered heartily into the cause of those who 
had played for them the part of liberators. They next destroyed 
the mansions and furniture of Sir John Fielding, and Lord 
Mansfield ; pictures, libraries, wines, and splendid furniture, 
might have been seen, strewed in all directions, and clutched by 
the crowd. 

Thus waged the horrid war. The next day witnessed only 
the increase of a lawless power, which seemed destined to know 
no future abatement. The establishment of a private citizen, a 
distiller in Holborn, a papist, Langdale by name, was attacked 
and fired. Then ensued a scene, such as pen can not describe. 
Five hundred thousand dollars' worth of property was destroyed 
in a space of time so short, that it seemed as if the whole had 
perished in a tornado of fire. 

The spectacle at twilight was awful and sublime. At one and 
the same moment the billowy clouds of flame were seen surging 
upward from the King's Bench and the Fleet Prisons : from the 
ponderous toll-gates on Blackfriar's Bridge ; from the new 
Bridewell, and from dwellings in different sections all over the 
metropolis. With a few friends who had purchased admission, 
I surveyed the terrific scene from the cupola of St. Paul's. Thf» 
crowds that ran howling through the streets ; the occasional 
thunder of artillery ; the spires of blazing light darting up on all 
sides, occasionally revealing the red waters of the Thames, and 
the sails like sheeted ghosts wavering along its bosom ; the tow- 
ers and steeples innumerable, clothed in lurid light; the maniac 
vociferations of numerous straggling parties of the mob, who 
had come intoxicated from Langdale's distillery, where they 
drank to excess, and where hundreds of hogsheads, emptied in 
the gutters, were ignited by torches, and ran from street to street, 
a tempestuous torrent of fire; — these were sights, that, once seen, 
could not fail to be forever remembered. Words are powerless 
to describe them. On Thursday they ceased. 

We have had some violent mobs in America, but none like 
this, wherein nearly five hundred persons, beside the numerous 
victims of the law, perished together. Long may such sangui- 
nary tempests be averted from our land ! 



302 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

DESPERATION. 

A TALE OF WO AND WEAL, 



A GENTLEMAN, whose worJ, like his penmanship, is straight up and down, and de- 
serving of credit, has sent us the following Tale, which has about it a touch of the 
(iermanic pencil. The discoverer of the narrative says he picked it up in Piiiladelphia, 
as he turned from Chestnut-street into Ninth, near the University. It is evidently the 
work of some young student, who is merely auto-biographical. His adventures, which 
seem to be described in a letter, are not without parallel, and certainly not withou 
warning. 



Thank Heavex, my dear George, I have arrived at home 
after a fortnight's mad siege at the Great MetropoHs. How cu- 
riously inscrutable are the freaks of fortune ! Three weeks ago, 
I could scarcely have met my tailor with a smile, or heard a 
friend propose an extra bottle of Sillery at dinner, without feeling 
in my bosom a void similar to that which reigned in my purse. 
But I am bravely over all these unpleasant sensations. Impu- 
dence and stratagem have set me superbly upon my legs. I 
have made the maxims of Jeremy Diddler my vade mecum : 
and now, methinks, I could lend a clever chum any given amount 
of shekels, within the circumscription of an X on the Monster. 
I nm flushed by success, and ' my countenance gives out lambent 
glories.' Every thing needs a preface, and my good fellow, for 
what is to come, these remarks serve only as a head. I will ad- 
dress myself to ray tale. 

' Eugene Dallas,' said Tom Edwards to me, as we sat at Par- 
kinson's, on a mild afternoon in December, discussing a delicious 
punch, a la Romahi, 'I have just been reading an article at the 
Athenaeum, in a Washington paper, describing the society there ; 
the beauty, the brilliancy, the life. It has made me sick of col- 
lege and books, and the parties we meet here ; where the music 
is but so-so, the ladies clannish, sometimes dull ; and where the 
young men line the long halls of their entertainers from parlor to 
kitchen, in order to besiege the first invoice of champaigne, un- 
mindful of the fair, who, fatigued with moving in the dance, 
await with Christian patience their allotment of ice-cream, oys- 
ters, and chicken-salad. I say, I begin to tire of these things. 
I should like to cut the town, ' clandecently,' for a fortnight or 
so, and go to Washington. Wouldn't you V 



The next day, we were warming our feet by the stove in the 
gentlemen's cabin of the steam-boat, and watching through the 



DESPERATION. 303 

windows the receding shores of Chesapeake bay. With trunks 
hastily packed, a confused wardrobe, and only thirty dollars be- 
tween us, we had entered upon this hair-brained frolic. A hur- 
ried letter to one of the Faculty announced that we should be 
absent a week or two, and the inference instantly transpired over 
town, that we had ' gone gunning at each other,' or in other 
words, to iSght a duel. 

Baltimore is an agreeable place. The approach to the city is 
picturesque ; the Cathedral and the Washington Monument rise 
magnificently to the view ; the principal streets are elegant ; the 
ladies petite and pretty. We staid there two days ; attended 
one splendid soiree ; smelt the gas foot- hghts at Holliday-street 
Theatre, and then — on for Washington. 

The monumental city fades beautifully on the traveller's eye. 
The noble statue of the Savior of his Country, towers, a white 
and shining column in the sky ; a pharos of liberty, sending the 
warm beams of patriotism into every American heart. Its tall 
form dwindled, over the brown landscape, to a slender shaft 
against a gay host of clouds, as we rolled toward the capitol. 

How shall I describe the feelings which animate a young citi- 
zen of this great republic, as he approaches the place where the 
destinies of a confederacy of nations are controlled and guided ! 
Throned on a lofty hill, he sees the domes of the capitol, colored 
by the sunbeam, and shining amid the striped and starry banners 
that roll out and rustle above them. A flood of historic associ- 
ations pours upon his mind. He bethinks him of the surmount- 
ed perils of the past, and the unrecorded glory of the future^ 
until his heart and his eyes are filled with emotion, and he rises 
with enthusiasm from his carriage-seat, and waving his hat on 
high, hurrahs for the land of the brave and the free ! 

Beyond the capitol lies the city, covering ground enough for 
half a dozen times its houses and inhabitants, yet no inapt em- 
blem of the country itself; large in plan, and rapidly fulfilling its 
scope, even beyond all original conjecture. 

Drove to Gadsby's. Fine house. Good taole (Thotc, excel- 
lent wines, and a talkative barber, who kills the Enghsh language, 
speaking daggers to it, at every breath. Went to the capitol. 
How proudly it rises at the end of the Pennsylvania Avenue ! 
what views from its dome ! The gay and winding Potomac, 
the outspread city ; Georgetown, Alexandria ; the gorge near 
Mount Vernon, in the distance ; the solemn burial ground of 
Congress nearer at hand ; the vast doings below and within ! It 
is a great place, Washington. 



304 PROSE MISCELLAXIES. 

Tom Edwards had a sei)atoiial uncle at Washington ; but 1 
knew nobody, except a country member of the House from our 
District. The chances of admission into society, therefore, were 
good for him, but faint for me. The result of his relationship 
was an almost immediate invitation for him, the next evening, to 

a party at Sir * * 's, the Foreign Minister. There was 

none for me ; but my wild chum vowed that I should go, on his 
introduction, and I assented. 

My first movement was to cast about for a hlanchisseuse. This 
was easily arranged. But my dismay can better be conceived 
than described, when I found that I had left my best coat at 
home, and brought away a cloth one, of summer-green, some- 
what marked by the careless positions of study. It had an unc- 
tuous collar, and buttons of disreputable antiquity, singularly 
rubbed by the finger of Time. What was to be done ? I ob- 
served from my window a tailor's sign ; and thither, after night- 
fall, I hied. On the ' board,' like a Turk with his pipe and 
slippers, was seated an old Frenchman, the master of the prem- 
ises. I produced my garment, and desired to know what the 
swindle would be for a new set of buttons, a professional reno- 
vation of the sleeves, and a banishment of the oil from the col- 
lar. I told him the habit was an indifferent one, but that if he 
would make its amendment cost me only a trifle, he should re- 
ceive all my future patronage, which I hinted would be pretty 
extensive. The enterprise of the Gallic snip was awakened ; 
and, 'promise-crammed,' he said: 

' You shall ax me tree dollar.' 

' Cheap enough,' said T, feeling conscious of my ability for 
the outlay, with a present sufficiency beside, if Edwards made a 
fair division : ' But mind, my friend, let the thing be nicely done ; 
renew the youth of the garment, and let the buttons be yellow, 
flashy, and fashionable.' 

' Certamment, Monsieur,'' replied the complaisant artisan ; and 
I took my leave. 



The brilliant apartments of Sir * * never looked more 

brilliant, 1 am sure, than they did on the next evening after this 
economical colloquy. Tom bowed me in, but by what species 
of social smuggling, I am unable to tell. At any rate, in I was, el- 
bowing my trembhng way through a glittering maze of beauty 
and fashion, humming with small-talk, and shining in gorgeous 
apparel. Supposing Edwards at my side, I turned my head to 
address him. The fellow had gone. It was indispensable to seek 
him ; and, ' all unknowing and unknown,' I attempted an awkward 



DESPERATION. 305 

retrogression for the purpose. At that instant, I saw him bowipg 
to a splendid young creature of about sixteen : at the next, they 
were standing together in a cotillon. I edged my way thither, 
and gave him a supplicating look, which said, ' Do, my good fel- 
low, introduce me to somebody.' The mischievous wretch 
glanced at me, with an eye whose oblique winter I shall never 
forget. He cut me dead ! He had a malicious smirk on his 
phiz, which expressed the meditated deviltry that was working in 
his mind. My pride was roused, and I was determined to show 
him my independence of his protection. Fortunately, I saw 
close at hand, a young gentleman, with whom I had formed a 
slight dinner-table acquaintance at Gadsby's. I am not ungenteel ; 
the blood of wounded pride was in my cheek, its fire was in my 
eyes ; and as to dress, thanks to the felicitous metamorphosis of 
the old tailor, my coat was handsomer than ever. My other ap- 
pointments were unexceptionable. I tied a good neckcloth ; my 
buttons shone lustrously, and my linen was fair as the broidered 
sails of Tyre. JNever did I look more like a gallant, comme il 
j'aut. My mere presence at the party established a claim to my 
new friend's attention ; so, stepping up to him, I bowed obse- 
quiously, and said : ' Do you know that beautiful young lady 
yonder, whom you are regarding with such devoted attention V 
' IVo,' said he politely; 'by Jove, I wish 1 did!' I touched his 
arm, and insinuated a white lie into his ear. ' You shall know 
her. I can efiect that for you. But first, let me beg you to ac- 
quaint me with the lady to whom I saw you just nov/ so courte- 
ous and cordial.' 

' Certainly,' was the answer ; and it was done. 

I flourished like a prince for the remainder of the evening ; 
and through the diplomacy of my first fair partner in the dance, 
was enabled to perform my promise to my friend, being first in- 
troduced myself. The strategie of that night could not be sur- 
passed. 1 flirted with bevies of beauty ; and while walking in a 
general march through the rooms, with the gay daughters of two 
certain Secretaries in the Department, Tom Edwards passed me: 
' Huge,'' said he, (this was his abbreviation for Eugene,) ' you are 
well supported, eh V Army and Navy !' 

" Sir r I replied, staring at him, 'who are you? You are 
mistaken.' Tom quailed away, looking daggers at me, which I 
forgot in a moment. The excitement of wine, the glitter of 
lights, the sweet gushes of music, thrilled through my nerves ; 
while, amid the rich odors of scented kid gloves and 'kerchiefs, 
' the rustling of silks and the creaking of shoes betrayed my fond 
heart to woman.' It was an evening, to my apprehension, that 

20 



306 PROSE MISCE1.LA\IES. 

might have been stolen, with all its dramatis personae of the 
opposite sex, fresh from Paradise. 

As the visitors began to lessen, I saw afar the country member 
from our District. He was obviously out of his element. He 
moved Uke a bear among young chickens. His white cravat, 
which was tied behind his neck, where the ends projected among 
his lank and tallowy locks, awakened a doubt whether it was in 
use for ornament or strangulation. Had it been a thought tight- 
er, that necessary vessel called the jugular would have been a 
useless conduit. His face was like to the setting sun, in an In- 
dian summer. He was making toward me, with his broad hands 
spread on his black tabby-velvet vest, his thumbs inserted in the 
arm-holes ; whereupon I decamped, for fear of an interview. 

I took my breakfast the next day at five o'clock, p. m. In 
my room, I found a note to my address, in Tom's cliirography. 
It discoursed to me thus : 

Gadshy^s, 9 o'clock, A. M. 
Dear Huge ; 

I AM gone to spend a fortnight, in a Christmas festival, with 
some friends in Virginia. I enclose a regular division of our 
joint funds. I have spoken to my uncle about our hotel bills 
here, and he will fix them. It is all understood. You can stay 
a fortnight if you like ; though how you'll get back to Philadel- 
phia, after that, the Lord only knows. Perhaps you may ac- 
complish the transit without trouble : if so, I shall be, (as I was 
last night, when I thought I knew you,) mistaken. 

^'^"'•^' Tom. 

Here was a pretty business ! He had enclosed me Jive dol- 
lars ! In my perplexity, I was on the point of descending to 
book myself to Baltimore, when I remembered that I had re- 
ceived two verbal invitations to parties, early in the ensuing 
week, and one from my fair first acquaintance of the preceding 
evening, to accompany her to church on the morrow, which was 
Sunday, and hear her favorite parson ' bray canticles.' 

There was no alternative. I must stay a week ; and stay I 
did. My five dwindled to three. I had glorious times in society, 
but when I thought of my breeches pocket my suspense was ac- 
tually horrid. Could some stout pugilist have knocked me into 
the middle of the next month, I should have blessed the trans- 
portation. The future seemed a blank, and Philadelphia as in- 
accesible as Jerusalem. 



DESPERATION. 307 

* All settled, Sir,' said the bar-keeper, as I asked him the 
amount of my bill. 1 forgave Tom on the instant. I had feared, 
for a week, that it would all be a trick, though I dared not ask. 

' What is the fare to Baltimore, in a private carriage V 

' Five dollars, Sir ; but here is a barouche, about to leave 
with some passengers, in which you may have a seat for three.* 

I paid out the last cash of which I stood possessed, and seeing 
my trunk properly lashed, embarked. After taking a final look 
at the city and the Capitol, as we rolled away from the metropo- 
lis, I was in an unbroken reverie, till the domes and pillars of 
Baltimore rose again to view. We wheeled on, until by the in- 
creased rattling, I found we were on the city pavements. 

'At what hotel shall 1 set you down, Sir V said the driver, 
touching his hat. 

I was in a quandary ; and so I answered his question by ask- 
ing another. ' Do you know any quiet and fashionable, but re- 
tired hotel, near the centre of the town V 

' Oh, yes, Sir ;' and he deposited me accordingly. 

I did not put my name on any book, but was shown directly 
to my room. It was a pleasant one, commanding a distant view 
of the Great Square and Battle Monument. Here I staid three 
days ; eating my meals stealthily, and being out nearly all the 
time. On the afternoon of the third day, I resolved to disclose 
my condition ; and to nerve myself for the effort, I ordered din- 
ner and wine in my room. I determined if a splendid .'epast 
and sundry bottles of good wine would screw my counge up, 
that it should arrive before bed-time at a proper tension. I re- 
gret to say, when I had finished my dinner, and punished an 
unusual quantity of champaigne, all alone, that I wa5, as Southey 
says of the sky, in Madoc, 

' Most darkly, deeply, beautifully blur." 

At eight o'clock in the evening, I retired co bed, after a lusty 
pull at the bell. The servant came. 

' Ask the landlord to step up to my room, and bring his bill.' 
He clattered down stairs, giggling, snd shortly thereafter his 
master appeared. He entered widi a generous smile, that 
made me hope for 'the best his house afforded,' and that, just 
then, was credit. 

' How much do I owe you ?* said I. He handed me the bill 
with all the grace of polite expectancy. 

'Let me see — seventeen dollars. How very reasonable! 
But my dear Sir, the most disagreeable part of this matter is 
now to be disclosed. I grieve to inform you that, at present, I 



308 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

am out of money : but I know, by your philanthropic looks, that 
you will be satisfied when I tell you that if I had it, I would 
give it to you with unqualified pleasure. But you see my not 
having the change by me is the reason I can't do it; and I am 
sure you will let the matter stand, and say no more about it. I 
am a stranger to you, that's a fact ; but in the place w^here I 
came from, all my acquaintances know me, as easy as can be.' 

The landlord turned all colors. ' Where do you live, any 
how ?' 

* In Washing I should say in Philadelphia.' 

His eye flashed with angry disappointment. ' I see how it is, 
Mister : my opinion is, that you are a black-leg. You don't 
know xvlierc your home is. You begin with Washington, and 
then drop it for Philadelphia. Y'ou mvst pay your bill.' 

* But I can't.' 

' Then I'll take your clothes ; if I don't, blow me tight !' 

* Scoundrel !' said I, rising bolt upright : ' Do it, if you dare ! 
do it ! — and leave the rest to me !' 

There were no more words. He arose, deliberately seized 
my hat, and my onhj inexpressibles, and walked down stairs. 

Physicians say that no two excitements can exist at the same 
time in one system. External circumstances drove away, almost 
immediately, the confusion of my brain. 

1 arose and looked out of the window. The snow was de- 
scenrfjig, as I drummed on the pane. What was I to do ? An 
unhappv wight, sans culottes, in a strange city ; no money, and 
slightly i^^briated. A thought struck me. J had a large, full 
cloak, which, with all my other appointments, save those he took, 
the landlord uad spared. I dressed immediately ; drew on my 
boots bver my fair white drawers, not unlike small clothes ; put 
on my cravat, v?st, and coat ; laid a travelling cap from my 
trunk, jauntily ovei my forehead, and flinging my fine long man- 
tle gracefully about Aie, made my way through the hall into the 
street. 

Attracted by shining lamps in the portico of a new hotel, a 
few squares from my first lodgings, I entered, recorded some 
name on the books, and bespoke a bed. Everything was fresh 
and neat ; every servant attentive ; all augured well. I kept 
myself closely cloaked ; puffed q cigar, and retired to bed, to 
mature my plot. 

' Waiter, just brush my clothes, well, my fine fellow,' said I, 
in the morning, as he entered my room. ' Mind the pantaloons ; 
don't spill anything from the pockets ; there is money in both.' 



. iJ E S P E R A T I O X . 309 

* I don't see no pantaloons.' 

' The devil you don't! Wiiere are they?' 

'Can't tell, I'm sure : I don't know, s'elp me God.' 

* Go down, Sirrah, and tell your master to come up here im- 
mediately.' The publican was with me in a moment. 

I had arisen and worked my face before the glass into a fiend- 
ish look of passion. ' Landlord !' exclaimed I, with a fierce 
gesture, '1 have been robbed in your house; robbed, Sir, robbed! 
My pantaloons, and a purse containing three fifty dollar-notes, 
are gone. This is a j)retty hotel ! Is this the way that you ful- 
fil the injunctions of Scripture ? I am a stranger, and I find my- 
self tdken in, with a vengeance. I will expose you at once, if I 
am not recompensed.' 

' Pray keep your temper,' said the agitated publican. ' 1 have 
just opened this house, and it is getting a good run : would you 
ruin its reputation, for an accident ? I will find out the villain 
who has robbed you, and I will send for a tailor to measure you 
for your missing garment. Your money shall be refunded. Do 
you not see that your anger is useless ":" 

' My dear Sir,' I replied. 'I thank you for your kindness. I 
did not mean to reproach you. If those trowsers can be done 
to-day, I shall be satisfied ; for time is more precious to me than 
money. You may keep the others if you find them, and in ex- 
change for the one hundred and fifty dollars which you give me, 
their contents are yours. 

The next evening, with new inexpressibles, and one hundred 
and forty dollars in my purse, I called on my guardian in Phila- 
delphia for sixty dollars. He gave it, w^ith a lecture on collegi- 
ate desertion, that I shall not soon forget. I enclosed the money 
back to my honorable landlord, by the first post, setded my other 
bill at old C rusty 's, the first publican, and got my trunk by mail. 
I have now a superflux of thirty dollars ; and w^hen Tom Ed- 
wards returns, if I can find no other use for it, I will give it to 
him, for the lesson he has taught me. 

If this story has bored you, George, you must forgive it. It 
is pleasanter to remember, being past, than it is to tell. 

Cordially Thine, 

Eugene Dallas. 



310 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



CONTEMPORARIES. 

'T IS a queer word. Where or how it first came into use, the 
memory of man scarce can tell. Political editors use it when 
they wish to deal sly cuts at each other, without calling hard 
names ; and it is, in truth, one of the commonest little fragments 
of parlance extant. How journalists would get on without it, 
passes conjecture. This, with the phrase ' some people,' and 
' certain persons,' gives them ample room for oblique thrusts and 
anonymous allusions. Verily, they have reason to bless the 
word. 

But it is not alone in the word itself that interest lodges. It 
is an honor to be contemporary with the great — I mean the ^br- 
tunate great, who happen to receive during their natural term of 
life that reward and renown which are often left to fling a halo 
about the tomb, and ring triumphant music in the dull ear of 
death. Who among the young does not look with a kind of envy 
upon the aged acquaintance that has seen General Washing- 
Toisr, and was a contemporary with him ? I have a friend, now 
just in the best part of manhood, who loves to tell how he met 
the Father of his Country, when Congress sat in Philadelphia. 
The lad was playing in the State House Square, with some young 
companions, while Washington passed along. ' There's the Com- 
mander in Chief,' said a dozen voices. All the little company 
ran to meet him. A storm was approaching ; and my friend, 
drawing near to Washington, offered him an umbrella. Several 
others did the same. ' No, my dear lads,' said the Pater Patriae, 
' keep your umbrellas for yourselves ; I have been in many 
storms, and can endure them.' There is not a lad, present at 
that time, who does not recall the circumstance with pleasure, 
and feel a delight in saying, ' Washington was my contempo- 
rary !' 

There is something in the grave, which hallows the goodness, 
as it buries the foibles, of its tenant. The form which wastes 
away within its precincts, has ceased to move and to be. Per- 
haps It had numerous enemies ; perhaps some imperious spirit 
agitated that mouldering heart, and fired that busy brain. But 
death smote them, and that form was no more the object of dis- 
esteem, or the nucleus of envious fancies. Post mortem ccssat 
invidia. No longer contemporary, the vices and the goodness of 
the common departed, become, the one softened, the other en- 
larged, to the imagination. Above, the sun rolls round upon his 



CONTEMPORARIES. 311 

circuit, in his chariot of gold ; the winds dispense abroad the mu- 
sic of streams and the breath of flowers ; contemporaries hear and 
inhale them ; but One has gone. He enjoys diem no more. He 
has travelled along the twilight vale of his decline, and is lost from 
among the living. 

I have often thought, when looking at some patriotic spectacle 
at the theatres, on a Fourth of July evening ; when the apotheo- 
sis of our Great Departed has been pictured forth, accompanied 
with solemn and mournful music, ending at last in triumphaht 
harmony ; I have thought, I say, what a sensation would be pro- 
duced, were the men thus honored to enter the theatre in the 
flesh, clothed, and with bones and sinews ! Awe and wonder 
would possess the multitude. Women would faint ; and men, 
iron-hearted men, would weep for very enthusiasm. But let the 
wonder cease ; let the re-appearance of these great men be ac- 
counted for on some rational principle, supposing that possible, 
and those restored patriots, hc'ing contemporary, would soon be 
talked of with the same freedom that has ever distinguished and 
yet distinguishes the political contests of this nation ; a freedom, 
from which even the character of Washington, spotless as it was, 
could not always be sacred. 

The farther we go into the past, the greater is our wonder at 
any thing which brings those olden ages near. Thus a mumrrnj, 
preserved for dozens of centuries, is truly a marvellous object. 
We look upon the antiquated face, once fanned by the airs of 
Egypt ; on the closed lids that perhaps opened to greet the sun- 
light as it poured its matin influence on the harmonious Memnon ; 
on the hands that may have woven the broidered sails of Tyrus, 
or waved some signal of applause to Ptolemy or Cleopatra. A 
British Poet has indulged in some beautiful reflections on this sub- 
ject, suggested by seeing one of these Ancient of Days in the ex- 
hibition of Belzoni, at London. They are in the form of an ad- 
dress to the mummy : 

I NKED not ask thee if that baud, when arm'd, 
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled, 

For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed, 
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled : 

Antiquity appears to have begun 

Long after thy primeval race was run. 

Since first thy form was in this box extended, 

We above ground have seen some strange mutations ; 

The Roman empire has begun and ended, 

New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations; 

And countless kings have into dust been humbled, 

While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled. 



312 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

Didst thou not hear the potlier o'er thy liead, 
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, 

March'd armies o'er thy tomb, with tliundering tread, 
O'ertiirew Osiris, Opus, Apis, Isis, 

And shoolv the Pyramids with fear and wonder, 
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder? 

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed, 

The nature of thy private life unfold ; 
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern vest, 

And tears adown tliat dusky cheek have rolled; 
Have children climb'd those knees, and kissed that face? 

What was thy name and station, age, and race ? 

Statue of flesh — immortal of the dead ! 

Imperishable type of evanescence i 
Posthumous man, who quit'stthy narrow bed. 

And slandest undecayed within our presence, 
Tiiou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning. 
When the great trumj) shall thrill thee with its warning ! 

Distance, which in space behttles objects, in time enlarges 
them. That which time spares, it hallows or curses. It bears 
to after ages the brightness oi" a mighty reputation, or it adds 
Iresii grimness to ' a wounded name.' Its plaudits and its an- 
athemas are alike enduring ; and that which, when contemporary, 
was not deemed especially worthy of eidier, has its claims 
strengthened in the lapse of years. 

Contemporaries ! Could any one go back into bodily presence, 
as we may in mind, among the great beings of the past — great 
for good or evil — how common-place would seem to him the 
thousand objects which history, and those deeds that ages sanc- 
tify, and fate, preserve immortal i That traveller into antiquity 
might sj)ort with Anthony in his voyages, with the dark eyes of 
' his Egypt' darting their liquid lustre, and witness the mighty 
littleness of the loving Roman ; he could stray with the philoso- 
phers through the groves of iVthens ; find Aristotle writing hymns 
to please his sense, and gratify the master of a concubine, not- 
withstanding his ethics that sense was non-essential to happiness ; 
he might see Tiberius fight with an oysterman, or hear Nero fiddle. 
Coming slowly down the vista of years, he might hear Shaks- 
peare play at the Globe Theatre, in London, or enjoy his early 
and ample fortune at Avon ; he might play with Goldsmith, dine 
with Milton, at Mr. Russell's the tailor's ; or laugh at Thomson 
as he sat on the fence of his rural retreat, with his hands in his 
pockets, eating out the blushing and sunny sides of peaches in 
his garden, that he was too lazy to pick ! This traveller, too, 
might see what were the real knights of chivalry, about whom so 
much is prated in these degenerate days. He would find them 



CONTEMPORARIES. 313 

boisterous, revengeful, bilious and dishonest fellows ; vulgar in 
attire, awkward in harness, covered with salve-patches on th%ir 
arms and legs, where they were galled with their iron mail, and 
leaving their scores at the blacksmith's shops unpaid, all the way 
from P' ranee and Britain, even to the Holy Land. Alas ! how 
much of romance fades away in that one word, contemporary ! 
It is ratsbane to the imagination ; it is a green shade over the 
eagle eye of Genius ! 

For heroes whose lives are passed at the head of armies, amid 
' the stir of camps and the revelries of garrisons ;' who are from 
year to year the observed of all observers ; for them, there is the 
reward of their own era. Such men enjoy during their own mor- 
tal span a kind of antepast of that renown which settles after 
death upon their name. But they pay heavily for their glory, by 
the responsibility and peril in which they exist. Failure even in 
judgment would be ignominy ; multitudes of resdess spirits are to 
be guided and kept subordinate by their power, kindness, and 
skill ; and what with one object and another to harass and dis- 
tress them, their lives are passed upon the rack, and they pay 
dearly enough for that two-penny whisde, jwsthumous fame. It 
is only by the bustle and turmoil in which they live, that they re- 
ceive more passing applause than the quiet civilian, whose works 
and merits, after his departure, add radiance to his name. 

I have said that, to be a contemporary, is to be belittled. The 
remark is true, indubitably. I might prove it by a thousand in- 
stances, but I will content myself with a very k\v. Homer was 
called by Aristarchus, a vain, foolish fellow, who fancied he 
could make poetry, and under that delusion had produced his 
stupid Iliad, whose speedy transit to obhvion was confidently 
predicted. jNow his fame fills the world. When Milton's Para- 
dise Lost appeared, a contemporary critic condemned it as trash ; 
and it sold for fifteen pounds. Now it is immortal. Every body 
will acknowledge that Shakspeare was a poet whose works are 
imperishable ; whose observation was unfailing ; who looked 
through Nature ; whose pathos and humor are irresistible ; who 
was, in short, at once sublime, yet simple and delicate ; touching 
and witty, deep and playful. He was such a man as centuries 
do not match or approach. And how would these eulogistic 
words have been received in his time ? As downright hyperbole. 
He was probably looked upon in pretty much the same light as 
Sheridan Knowles, that fine poet of humanity, is now viewed in 
London ; namely, as a man who wrote plays, and acted parts in 
them. The majority of the common people undoubtedly es- 
teemed him ' no great shakes.' I find in the chronicle of a quaint 



314 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

historian of Shakspeare and Queen Elizabeth's time, the follow- 
ing venerable sketch, which shows that the Swan of Avon stood 
but indifferent well : ' Our modern and present excellent poets 
which worthily in their owne workes, and alle of them in my owne 
knowledge lived in this Queene's* reigne, according to their pri- 
orities, as neere as I could, I have orderly sette downe, (viz.) 
George Gascoigne, Esquire, Thomas Church-yard, Esquire, Ed- 
ward Dyer, Knight, Edmond Spenser, Esquire, Sir PhiHp Sid- 
ney, Knight, Sir Thomas Chaloner, Knight ; Sir Francis Bacon, 
Knight, and Sir John Davie, Knight ; Master John Lillie, gen- 
tleman, Master George Chapman, gentleman, Master William 
"Warner, gentleman. Mast. JVil. Shaks-yearc, gent. ; Samuel 
Davie of the Bath, Master Christopher Mario, gent. ; Master 
Benjamin Jonson, gent. ; John Marston, esquire ; Master Abm. 
Francis, gent. ; Francis Meers, gent. ; Master Joshua Sylvester, 
gent. ; Master Thomas Decker, gent. ; John Mecher, gent. ; John 
Webster, gent, ; Thomas Haywood, gent. ; Thomas Middleton, 
gent. ; and George Withers.' 

Now of all the poets, here ' orderly sette downe, according to 
their priorities,'' how few survive ! We have a host of knights 
and esquires, of whom, with a ievf exceptions, nothing is known : 
and after Masters Chapman and Billy Warner, we have ' Mast. 
Wil. Shaks-peare !' Of his fellow-bards, with some omissions, 
what have we heard ? What of Chaloner, Davie, Lillie, Web- 
ster, Meers, Sylvester, and Thomas Church-yard, eke ? We can 
only fancy the latter a melancholy writer, but darkness covers 
nearly all the rest. Doubtless Shakspeare conceived himself in- 
ferior to all those whose names here precede his ; and therein, 
(with the exclusion of his king and queen, and a few choice, 
learned spirits, who knew his surpassing power,) he probably co- 
incided with the general impression of his merits. Such is the 
judgment of ' contemporaries !' 

• Elizabeth. 



LEAVES FROM AK AERO N OUT. 315 



LEAVES FROM AN AERONAUT. 

' But in Man's dwellings, he became a thing, 
Restless, and worn, and stern, and wearisome ; 

Droop'd as a wild-born falcon, with dipt wing. 
To whom the boundless air alone were home.' BrRON. 

I HAVE realized one of the dreams of my youth, and gratified 
the strongest aspirations that ever agitated my manhood. I look 
back with a kind of intoxicating bewilderment upon the perils I 
have encountered, and the fears I have subdued ; for, to me, the 
memory of excitement is excitement still. 

My early days were passed in a village in the country. I first 
opened my eyes to the light, near the banks of the Hudson ; and 
my juvenile hours were full of the most flighty visions. I always 
had a very aerial imagination. Anything in motion always had 
for me a peculiar charm. T shall never forget the delight I ex- 
perienced in seeing the doves fly from their shelter in the end of 
my father's carriage-house. They would alight, and poise them- 
selves for a moment on the eaves, turn their bright necks in the 
sunlight, pour forth a few reedy murmurs, and then launch out 
upon the bosom of the air. Often, in the fulness of youthful de- 
sire, have 1 felt ready to say : 

' Oh, for t!;y wings I thou dove, 
Now sailing by, with sunshine on thy breast, 

Thou thing of joy and love. 
That I might soar away, and be at rest ." 

My school-bench commanded a view of a long and distant 
range of the Kaatskills, lifting their tall summits aloft, ' and print- 
ing their bold outlines against the sky.' How did I love to watch 
the evening clouds as they drave before the summer gale, along 
those gigantic tumuli of blue, in throngs of gold and purple, mag- 
nificent waftage, of rack undislimned ! My ardent fancy peo- 
pled them with fairy inhabitants. Sometimes, castles and cities 
seemed rising from them, groves nodded in beauty, and some- 
times there would seem to spring up from their midst a mighty 
rock ' o'erhanging as it rose, impossible to climb.' I used to 
think how those misty peaks of cloud could be surmounted, and 
was wont to muse and dream over ray shut arithmetic, until I 
thought myself among them. 

With my years, this soaring passion increased within me. I 
constructed large paper-kites, and sent them out of sight, at the 
end of some thousand yards of twine, procured by the outlay of 



316 PROSE IMISCE L L AXIES. 

every cent of my pocket-money for holidays. iNty heart hounded 
with every move of those bird-hke obiects. Finally, I construct- 
ed one of linen, nearly six feet long ; and, considering the shape 
of a kite, proportionably wide. I had conceived the idea of send- 
ing up a cat at the end of it, suspended a few feet from the paper 
tail. One gusty afternoon in autumn, I attempted the enterprise. 
Taking the kite on the terrace of my father's house, with the cat 
tied to a chair, 1 arranged my large spindle of almost intermina- 
ble twine, and perfected my arrangements. I secured the affec- 
tionate old grimalkin to the cord, and attached it to the kite, which 
I had much ado to hold steadily in my hand, for the violence of 
the gale. Swinging the affair over the balustrade, I let the 
small windlass slowly unroll with my left hand, while with my 
right I held the cat by the soft velvet strap which I had tied 
around her body, just behind her fore-legs. 

The kite was now moving slowly upward, and puss was 
purring most cordially, ' her custom always of an afternoon.' 
As soon as the kite rose above the garden trees, it felt the full 
press of the wind, and rushed upward like an arrow. At this 
juncture, my venerable tabby was lifted from the chair where she 
stood in unsuspecting quietude, and went dangling off, zenith- 
ward. As I heard her hysterical yowUngs grow fainter and fainter, 
and saw her feline corporation fading into indistinctness on the 
edge of a cloud, I came to the conclusion that I had performed 
one of the greatest achievements ever consummated by man. That 
curious, Yankee-like Ancient, who stumped about, crying Eure- 
ka ! on making his great discovery, could not have enjoyed him- 
self more, in that paroxysm of rapture, than I did when I heard 
and saw that old puss squalling her way into ether. When the 
twine had completely unrolled, she was entirely out of sight, 
among the clouds. I tied my string to the balustrade, and let 
the poor old quadruped remain in mibibus, by the space of three 
hours, when I wound her down, wet and shivering. Her large 
green eyes were dilated with fear, and their sockets looked as if 
they would soon have had, to use a boarding-school phrase, ' a 
vacancy for pupils.' 

But this adventure did not satisfy my ambition, I wished to 
be, ijcrsonalhj, in the air. The blue fields above me looked ever 
to my eye, like the abodes of beauty and peace. One afternoon, 
about this period, I gave notice to my school-mates, that I would 
treat them to a specimen of ' the art of sinking,' from the roof of 
the village academy, a stone edifice, five stories high. Choosing 
a breezy day, and having each hand occupied with a large um- 
brella, made for the occasion, T stalked gingerly out of the dor- 



LEAVES FROM AN AERONAUT. 317 

mer window of the cupola, and walking to the end of the root, 
looked down upon a whole green-full of spectators. I had ea- 
perimented, previously, as an amateur, from divers heights, without 
injury. Getting a little dizzy, I opened my umbrellas, and made 
the spring. I descended w-ith a decent slowness at first, but the 
operation of gravity upon me, after 1 passed the second story, 
was too strong for breath, or comfort, i struck the ground with 
force enough to cut my tongue desperately between my teeth, (for 
I suppose I was about to say something in the ejaculative way,) 
and to be jarred into a state of feeling like that of a glass of jelly, 
allowing that article to have the capacity of sensation. 1 rose to 
my feet, laughing as if the exploit were a fine one, and 1 delight- 
ed ; but at the same time, with my mouth full of blood. 

The memory of this feat w^as only a stimulant to the prosecu- 
tion of others. But science now began to lend her influence and 
aid to my longings. One part of my academical studies was 
chemistry. I listened to the lectures of the Principal w\\h a 
pleasurable wonder, which I can not describe. The best por- 
tions of the course were the evenings set apart for experiments. 
One circumstance tended to render them peculiarly attractive. 
My heart, about this time, became touched with the living fer- 
vors of the tender passion. The object of my regard was a lovely 
creature, only seventeen years of age. Sweet Sophia Howard I 
She is one whom I remember as a perfect beauty, if one ever lived. 
How richly the golden hair disparted on her calm forehead, and 
lay in silken waves upon her rosy cheek ! There was a light in 
her clear, hazel eye, that used to fill me with a kind of dreamy 
transport, which no time can annul. 

In some of the lectures, the lights were extinguished, for the 
purpose of showing the effects of phosphorus. On such oc 
casions, how^ great was the change of places among the stu- 
dents ! Every young lover hied to his mistress' side, for all the 
refined young ladies of the village attended, and many were the 
kisses exchanged in the darkness, then ! With my Sophia near 
me, I was supremely comfortable. We watched the marks and 
letters of flame as they played on the wall, and heard the lecturer 
talking in his obscurity, ' but our hearts were othenvhere !' Ah, 
good gracious ! those were happy days ! But I rhapsodise. 

The study of chemistry interested me beyond any other. It 
seems so sicpenui/ural, in many respects, to the half-initiated, that 
it is very difiicult to believe that an unearthly agency is not ex- 
erted, in its results and combinations. It always reminded me 
of the tales of wonder and enchantment, and the diablerie of 
Faust, Monk Lewis, and other Satannic intellects. Bv degrees,^ 



31S PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

the study became to me a passion. What whh that, and love, I 
was well nigh distraught. Finally, after a good deal of thought 
upon the subject, and a careful estimate of my chances of pros- 
perity in any other pursuit, I resolved to become a chemist by 
profession. 

As soon as I had made up my mind, I came to the city to con- 
tinue the study. 1 pressed forward in my career with unabated 
ardor. In the course of my researches on the subject of gases, 
I encountered some histories of Aeronauts. They acted upon 
my imagination as a spark of fire would on a nitrous train ; they 
kindled it into a blaze. With what enthusiasm did I pore over 
the recorded experiments and doubts of Cavallo and the INIont- 
golfiers', of Charles, and d'Arlandes ! I resolved at some fu- 
ture time, and that not remote, to try my silken sphere in the sky, 
and to live, in fame, with those bold adventurers of Paris and 
Avignon. 

This era of my life v.-as one of unmingled enjoyment. My 
charming Sophia passed her winters with her relations in town ; 
and our evenings were, of course, mutually shared. In her so- 
ciety, music and beauty warmed me into rapture ; and when the 
summer called her and her gentle cousins of the city to her rural 
home, 1 u:?ed to feel like a hermit. Then my thoughts would 
revert to chemistry with increased earnestness. The goodness 
of my father enabled me to surprise my friends with a superb 
store, and I conducted it with brilliant and unexpected success. 

Practical chemistry is a severe calling, and 1 was only a su- 
perintendent of my establishment. I had faithful and competent 
subordinates for all the details, which left me nearly one half of 
my time to spend at leisure, with men of science and letters. 
The inspiration thus acquired, all tended to one point, my ulti- 
mate ascension. There was not a day in the year, in which the 
thought of it was absent from my mind. Occasional notices of 
ascensions abroad, which met my eye among the foreign quota- 
tions, served only to fan the flame. 

One bright morning in June, as I was passing along Maiden 
Lane, I saw a piece of light-colored silk, at the door of a fashion- 
able shop. I stepped up to examine it. The quality was of 
uncommon excellence. It was light, but very firm. Here, 
thought I, Is the mater'id for my balloon. I entered, asked the 
price, and found that the shop-keeper had several pieces of pre- 
cisely the same quality. I purchased them at once, and leaving 
my address, walked home as if on air. I had made the primary 
movement in my enterprise, and I felt that it would not be long, 
ere I should cease to be one of the ' undistinguished many.' I 



LEAVES FROM AN AERONAUT. 319 

was determined to make some sensation in the world ; to rise 
superior to that large number, each of whom is only famous for 
counting one in a general census ; but to preserve a strict incog- 
nito until the time arrived, when I should blaze upon the public 
like a stray comet. 

My intimacy with scientific gentlemen was of much service to 
me ; although I do not imagine that a close knowledge of men 
and things will add much to one's seli-coniidence. My acquaint- 
ance with the science by which I expected to rise, was by no 
means complete, and perhaps my limited attainments inspired me 
with vigor to trample with a firm and resolute step upon every 
obstacle that might interpose to prevent my flight. The mystery 
of the aeronaut was of no very remote introduction in the coun- 
try ; and though 1 had witnessed one or two ascensions, and con- 
versed with the aeronauts, as to the details of their efforts, yet I 
found myself unable properly to comprehend them. They were 
of transatlantic origin, and after one or two voyages aloft, gener- 
ally returned w^hence they came, each bearing with him the mar- 
vellous «erosto^, that he had brought from foreign lands. Books, 
therefore, and my own judgment, supplied my deficiency in prac- 
tical knowledge, and my soaring resolution daily grew stronger 
and stronger. 

At this period, 1 surveyed the heavens by night and day, with 
an intensity of interest. There swelled that broad blue theatre, 
among whose cloudy curtains I was yet to rise ; there, were the 
empires of the imagination ; from thence came light, enveloped 
in heat ; and there, was the source of life. There the sun ' look- 
ed from his sole dominion like a God,' sowing the earth with his 
vital smile ; from that endless vault came the subtle, invisible, and 
mystic fluid, which pervades the globe, ubiquitous in its princi- 
ple, resistless in its power. There, the tremulous stars sang to- 
gether ; there, the Thunderer lifted his voice ; there, the meteor 
streamed its horrid hair ; and from thence, the moon poured her 
religious lustre on the earth, blending her rays with the sweet in- 
fluences of Orion and the Pleiades, of Arcturus and his sons. 

I never prided myself much on my weather-wisdom ; and the 
atmospherical phenomena or changes of the seasons seldom 
occupied much of my attention. But now, as I meditated an 
early voyage, I began to compare a few old almanacs together, 
to ascertain the mildest part of the season. Whether the com- 
parison was accidental or not, I am unable to tell ; but I found 
that the early days of September had been for many years pre- 
vious, remarkably clear and calm. Presuming on the continu- 
ance of such weather, I fixed upon the first part of that approach- 



320 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

ing month for my aerial debut. The sequel proved that my ra- 
tiocination was at fault. 1 looked for a day such as we some- 
times experience after the fervors of the solstice, when the sky 
appears palpable, and you can see the downy beard of the thistle, 
gradually moving through its depths, as if empowered to make 
its way, fast or slow, by inherent volition. But there is such a 
thing as a premature equinox, and in dry weather all signs fail. 

Not a week now passed, without finding me in the possession 
of some new materials, all tending to the ultimate object. My 
nights, instead of sleep, gave me visionary slumbers, fitful pas- 
sages of repose, which made my waking hours seem like the 
fragments of a dream. I felt like one rapt, inspired. I shunned 
all company, I neglected my affectionate iSophia's correspondence 
from the country. In fine, I was half demented, perhaps a mon- 
olithiac, a fool on one point. But there was method in my mood. 
I had a determinate purpose in my mind, where every energy 
centered. 

About a month before the time, I sent a confidential notice to 
an editor of one of the journals, requesting him to observe in his 
original department, that, early in September, a young American 
would make his first ascension in a balloon from Castle Garden, 
and that due information would be given of the day on which the 
event would take place. The article appeared, and went the 
rounds. I immediately sent a paper, and wrote to Sophia Howard 
and her brother, giving her tiie intelligence that the aeronaut was 
a friend of hers, whom we both knew, and requesting the brother 
to accompany the family to the city in the steamboat, on the 
Saturday evening previous to the ascension, the time of which I 
promised to communicate as soon as definitely known. I had 
the satisfaction of receiving a compliance with my request, and a 
thousand questions from Sophia, concerning 'the intrepid young 
gentleman, who was about to leave the world in so singular a 
manner.' 

I kept my secret, and perfected my arrangements. Long be- 
fore the day selected for my enterprise, my balloon was made, 
and folded, according to the forms 1 had seen ; the netting, iron, 
oil of vitriol, barometer, vessels, all the apparatus, prepared ; 
even the ice was engaged, with which the conductors were to be 
cooled. I had proceeded with the utmost caution ; and the 
proximity of the wished-for yet dreaded time occupied almost 
every thought. Gas and love divided my intellect between them. 
My scientific confederates were all sworn to be mum about my 
name ; the newspapers announced the day, and * keen the won- 
der grew.' 



LEAVES FROM AN AERONAUT. • 321 

At the time specified, my friends came. The expected voy- 
age was then a town's talk, and I had much ado to keep my 
counsel from Sophia. An evening or two after her arrival, on 
visiting her with my accustomed punctuality, I found her beau- 
tiful eyes filled with tears. I asked the cause. She handed me 
one of the evening journals. It announced my name as that of 
the aeronaut who was about to make his perilous venture. So- 
phia implored me to say that it was erroneous, and thus remove 
her misery. 

For a moment I was utterly unmanned. The tears of a lovely 
being, who had never before met me but with a smile, and whom 
I adored so tenderly, were too much for me. I hesitated a little : 
but Truth was my counseller : I knew that some of my confi- 
dants must have ' blabbed^'' and I owned that the statement was 
veritable. 

I will not describe the scene that ensued. Had not my unu- 
sual eloquence succeeded in explaining to her the comparative 
safety of the attempt, and in soothing her fears, I would have 
flung a thousand balloons to the wind, rather than wound that 
gentle heart. But Sophia Howard had a yielding spirit. When 
she found that my whole soul was bent on the effort, when I 
showed her the reputation and advantages it might give me, she 
grew calm with a ' sweet reluctant delay,' that endeared her to 
me more than ever. 

At last came on the evening preWous to the day. As I walk- 
ed among the busy throngs of Broadway, heard my name uttered 
by hundreds, and caught occasional views of the rich scenery 
across the Hudson, where twilight was then faintly blushing, I 
could not help asking myself, ' Where shall I be at this time to- 
morrowT Perhaps, a lifeless corse in the ocean, or perchance 
dashed upon some rocky crag, or blasted by some dreadful ex- 
plosion !' But my mind was made up, and I drave the forebod- 
ings from my brain. I spent a holy, melancholy evening with my 
beloved, and our adieu was like that of friends who part to meet 
no more. 

That night I could not sleep. Perturbed by a multitude of 
thoughts, I tossed upon my couch in restless longings. At last, 
I slumbered, and dreamed. 

Methought 1 embarked in my balloon to cross the ocean. I 
cut the ideal cord, and set forth in my imaginary car. Day after 
day, to my fancy, I rode on the posting winds, far above the 
long green swells of the Atlantic. At last, I made the coast of 
England, and sailed among the clouds to London. Here, me- 
thought, news had been received of my approach, and an escort 

21 



322 . PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

of several pilot-balloons came out to meet me. I found a com- 
mittee of both Houses of Parliament, with the Lord Mayor, on 
the broad, flat-roof of St. Paul's, ready for my reception. They 
offered me the hospitalities of the city. How fantastic is a 
dream ! I declined the honor, and pushed on to Windsor. 
There I stopped for a moment, fastened my balloon to the ter- 
race, and took a glass of wine with the king, who I thought was 
walking on the terrace, in his rohe de chambre, and eke his night- 
cap. He gave me a passport to France. I shook his royal 
hand, borrowed some pigtail tobacco of him, and sailed away. I 
reached France soon after. Passing over the heights of Mont- 
martre, I looked down upon the capital. I seemed to hioiv the 
city ; and when I arrived over the Place Vendome, I was made 
to look up, by some irresistiblo monition, and lo ! my balloon 
had changed to the semblance of a horn ! a long, bright trumpet 
of silk, the litde end towards the earth, and from it, by a mere 
thread, was my car suspended ! All at once, the thread parted. 
I went down, down, in a way that one can only sink in dreams. 
I saw my head strike against the statue of Napoleon, and fall 
separate from my body to the earth. I observed tlie jabbering 
crowd pickirfg up my limbs, (these are sights for dreams only !) 
and then I awoke. 

The morning sun was shining in my window. I dressed in- 
stantly. My dream seemed to indicate that I should at any rate 
have an extensive sail, though the close omened that I should 
come out at last from the little end of the horn. ' Never mind,' 
said I, ' that last part was dreamed in the morning ; and there is 
an adage, that ' morning dreams always go by contraries.' This 
satisfied my superstition, and I took my slender breakfast in 
cheerfulness and hope. 

I had scarcely finished this hasty meal, when my apaitment 
was entered by a meagre-looking gentleman, who seemed ner- 
vous and agitated. I inquired his pleasure. He answered me 
with a marked French accent. ' My dear Sir,' said he, ' you are 
not acquainted with me, but I have taken the liberty to come and 
try to dissuade you from your voyage this day. I have never 
seen but one balloon ascension, and God forbid that I should 
ever see another. It was that of M. Romain, and Pilatre de 
Rozier, in '85. I saw them rise from the shore of France, to 
cross to the English side ; as their double balloons ascended 
among the clouds over the waves, I saw the flames burst forth in 
the lower globe ; I saw the fierce blaze flashing aloft, and the 
daring aeronauts precipitated from on high, mangled by the fiery 



LEAVES FROM AN AERONAUT. 323 

gas, and swept to death by that aerial power which they had 
fondly hoped would give them fame ! Horrid remembrance'! 
My dear friend, can I persuade you not to go V 

I was touched with this abrupt evidence of friendship ; but I 
argued with the adviser, that important discoveries had since 
been made in the science ; that my gas would be cool, and no 
embers be placed near the aerostat, as there was with that of Ro- 
zier and Remain. My determination, I added, was inflexible. 
The gentleman smiled reluctantly, and bowed himself out as sud- 
denly as he entered, leaving me surprised at the quickness and 
singularity of the interview. 

1 now consulted my barometer. It had risen during the night, 
but there were flying clouds in the sky, and they drifted along 
whh a rapidity which betokened a strong wind. I found, how- 
ever, on opening my window, that it was light but summer-like. 
The barometer could not be doubted, and my hopes were as- 
sured. 

I was now delayed for hours with men from the amphitheatre 
at the garden, wishing my directions. I gave them like a general 
commanding his legions. One I ordered to the sail-maker's, for 
canvass to spread the balloon on ; one to the cooper's, for extra 
casks : one to one place, one to another. I issued my ukase 
that no particle of iron, or any sharp, hard substance be left on 
the ground about the canvass ; that the policemen should be on 
the ground, tickets sent to editors, and arranged every thing with 
a promptitude that has since astonished me. I then retired to 
my room, and dressed in a plain suit of American cloth, for the 
occasion, had my chin new reaped by a dainty barber, and sallied 
into the street. 

It was r>Ovv about twelve o'clock. I called for a moment on 
the Howards, to inform them that one of the best seats had been 
reserved for their use, and that an attendant would be at the gate, 
to conduct them to it. This, to me, first duty arranged, I walk- 
ed slowly down Broadway to the Garden. As general a turning 
of heads occurred among the most of those I met, as if I had 
been the sea-serpent. There was excitement in this. I felt like 
a monarch. 

I found the garden by no means empty, even at that early hour ; 
and around about the scene, were premature groups of curious 
sailors, country urchins, and Fly-market loafers, looking up at 
the tiags, and other popular furniture, that fluttered above. I 
examined every thing connected with the apparatus most strictly. 
Minutes seemed hours. At length, the cannon, booming over 
the bay, and startling the distant shores and heights, announced 



324 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

the opening of the gates, and the commencement of the process 
of inflation. Throngs of well-dressed citizens, ladies and gentle- 
men, began to arrive. The empty benches became fewer and 
fewer ; and there was a bustle around me, which filled me with 
impatience. My natural timidity was lost in the consciousness 
that my preparations were perfect, and an assurance that I should 
perform wjiat I had promised. The wind had lulled, the clouds 
dispersed from overhead, though a few bright-edged ones still lay 
along the west. 

The attendants now opened the carboys of oil of vitriol, some 
of which they poured into large jars : these were emptied into 
capacious hogsheads, where three thousand pounds of iron, and 
some thousand gallons of water had already been placed. The 
chemical compound was complete ; the noise proceeding from 
the casks, proved the powerful action of the agitated acid on the 
iron. The water was fast decomposing, the gas rushed through 
the tubes to the condenser, and thence poured in volumes into 
the balloon, which now arose from the canvass, gradually distend- 
ing into a globular form, and quivering like a thing of life, in im- 
patient bondage. Finally, it was permitted to rise a few feet, for 
the proper arrangement of the delicate cord-work, by which it 
was encompassed. I now experienced a strong feeling of pleas- 
ure, when I heard the loud cheering which attended the letting 
off of the little pilot balloon. It passed to the east of the city, 
and describing a vast semicircle over the north part of the town, 
floated, at last, away to the west, beyond the wind-mills of Jer- 
sey city, toward the town of Newark. There was a kind of 
pleasing bewilderment in being thus the focus of ten thousand 
eyes, in the bursts of national music, and the encouragement of 
so many hearts. I felt it all. It surpassed every previous ex- 
perience of condensed excitement. 

Only twenty minutes now remained before the hour of ascen- 
sion. ' The time of my departure was at hand,' and I was 
* ready to be offered.' Every thing requisite had been placed in 
my fairy gondola ; my pigeon, the poetry, in hand-bills, for the 
occasion ; the tissue-paper, flags, ballast, all. Every moment 
seemed an hour. I did not trust myself to look often at the seat 
where Sophia, and all my nearest relations, were seated ; for I 
feared that they might disconcert me. Observing a broken car- 
boy of oil of vitriol lying carelessly by the passage through which 
the balloon wilh its netting had been brought, I ordered it instantly 
removed. The amphitheatre was now filled ; the Battery trees 
' bore men ;' the bay was crowded with craft of all sorts, and 
every eminence in the neighborhood was clothed with clusters of 
human beings. 



LEAVES FROM AN AERONAUT. 325 

My gay wicker-car was now attached, with the minutest care, 
to the long cords that depended from the buoyant globe above. 
I was looking at my watch, observing that the time of twenty had 
dwindled to eight minutes, when I heard the cry of ' Fire !' I 
sprang toward the aerostat, as if a bullet had perforated my heart. 
'Where?' said I. ' Tliere, in the balloon!' was the answer. 
Looking upward, I perceived that the netting had become en- 
tangled with the valve, which ever and anon flew open, as the 
wind surged against the balloon, and the gas, mixed with vapor, 
issued from the aperture, resembling smoke. The netting was 
soon disengaged ; and the valve, closed and held by its stout 
springs, remained firm in its place. 

My hour had now come, and I entered the car. With a 
singular taste, the band struck up at this moment the melting 
air of ' Sweet Home.' It almost overcame me. A thousand as- 
sociations of youth, friends, of all that I must leave, rushed upon 
my mind. But like Dashall in the play, I had no leisure for 
sentiment. A buzz ran through the assemblage ; unnumbered 
hands were clapping, unnumbered hearts beating high ; and I 
was the cause. Every eye was upon me. There was pride in 
the thought. 

' Let go !' was the word. The cheers redoubled, handker- 
chiefs waved from many a fair hand, bright faces beamed from 
every window, and on every side. My last look was toward 
Sophia. She was pale, and her lips parted ' like monument of 
Grecian art.' Her white fingers touched them, as I cut the 
cord. One dash with my knife, and I rose aloft, a habitant of air. 

How magnificent was the sight which now burst upon me ! 
How sublime were my sensations ! I waved the flag of my 
country ; the cheers of the multitude from a thousand house-tops 
reached me on the breeze ; and a taste of the rarer atmosphere 
elevated my spirits into ecstacy. The city, with a brilliant sun- 
shine striking the spires and domes, now unfolded to view, a 
sight incomparably beautiful. My gondola went easily upward, 
clearing the depths of heaven, like a vital thing. A diagram 
placed before you, on the table, could not permit you to trace 
more definitely than I now could, the streets, the highways, ba- 
sins, wharves, and squares of the town. The theatres and public 
buildings, I recognised from their location near parks or open 
grounds, and from the pecuharity of dieir being covered with va- 
rious metals, as well as slate, or tiles. The hunn of the city 
arose to my ear, as from a vast bee-hive ; and I seemed the 
nonarch-bee, directing the swarm. I heard the rattling of car- 
riages, the hearty yo-heave-o ! of sailors from the docks that, be- 



326 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

girt with spars, hemmed the city round : I was a spectator of all, 
yet aloof, and alone. Increasing stillness attended my way ; 
and at last the murmurs of earth came to my ear like the last vi- 
brations of a bell. 

My car tilted and trembled, as I rose. A swift wind some- 
times gave the balloon a rotary motion, which made me deathly 
sick for a moment ; but strong emotion conquered all my physi- 
cal ailings. My brain ached with the intensity of my rapture. 
Human sounds had fainted from my ear. I was in the abyss of 
heaven, and alone with my God. I could tell my direction by 
the sun on my left ; and as his rays played on the aerostat, it 
seemed only a bright bubble, wavering in the sky, and I a sus- 
pended mote, hung by chance to its train. Looking below me, 
the distant Sound and Long-Island appeared to the east; the bay 
lay to the south, sprinkled with shipping ; under me the city, 
girded with bright rivers and sparry forests ; the free wind was 
on my cheek and in my locks ; afar, the ocean rolled its long blue 
waves, chequered with masses of shadow, and gushes of ruby 
sunlight ; to the north and west the interminable land, variegated 
like a map, dotted with purple, and green, and silver, faded to 
to the eye. 

The atmosphere which I now breathed seemed to dilate my 
heart at every breath. I uttered some audible expression. My 
voice was weaker than the faintest sound of a reed. There was 
no object near to make it reverb or echo. Though rising with 
incredible swiftness, I had nothing to convince my eye that I was 
not nearly still. The weak flap-flap- flap, of the cords against the 
balloon, in regular motion, as the trembling aerostat, moved by 
its subtle contents, continued to rise, was all that indicated my 
tendency. My barometer now denoted an immense height ; and 
as I looked upward and around, the concave above seemed like 
a mighty waste of purple air, verging to blackness. Below, it 
was lighter ; but a long, lurid bar of cloud stretched along the 
west, temporarily excluding the sun. The shadows rushed afar 
into the void, and a solemn, Sabbath-twilight, reigned around. I 
was now starded at a fluttering in my gondola. It was my com- 
yagnon du voyage, the carrier pigeon. I had forgotten him en- 
tirely. I attached a string to his neck, with a label, announcing 
my height, then nearly four miles, and the state of the barometer. 
As he sat on the side of the car, and turned his tender eyes upon 
me in mute supplication, every feadier shivering with apprehen- 
sion, I felt that it was a guilty act to push him into the waste be- 
neath. But it was done ; he attempted to rise, but I out-sped 
him ; he then fell obliquely, fluttering and moaning, till I lost him 
in the haze. 



LEAVES FROM AN AERONAUT. 3I>/ 

My greatest altitude had not yet been reached. I was now 
five miles from terra-firma. I began to breathe with difficulty. 
The atmosphere was too rare for safe perspiration. I pulled my 
valve-cord to descend. It refused to obey my hand. For a 
moment I was horror-struck. What was to be done ? If I as- 
cended much higher, the balloon would explode. I threw over 
some tissue paper to test my progress. It is well known that 
this will rise very swiftly. It fell, as if blown downward, by a 
wind from the zenith. I was going upward like an arrow. I at- 
tempted to jiray, but my parched lips could not move. I seized 
the cord again, with desperate energy. Blessed heaven ! it 
moved. I threw out more tissue. It rose to me like a wing of 
joy. I was descending. Though far from sunset, it was now 
dark about me, except a track of blood-red haze, in the direction 
of the sun. I encountered a strong current of wind ; mist was 
about me ; it lay like dew upon my coat. At last, a thick bar 
of vapor being past, what a scene was disclosed ! A storm was 
sweeping through the sky, nearly a mile beneath, and I looked 
down upon a?i ocean of rainbows, rolling in indescribable gran- 
deur, to the music of the thunder-peal, as it moaned afar and 
near, on the coming and dying wind. A frightened eagle had 
ascended through the tempest, and sailed for minutes by my side, 
looking at me with panting weariness, and quivering mandibles, 
but with a dilated eye, whose keen iris flashed unsubdued. 
Proud emblem of my Country ! As he fanned me with his 
heavy wings, and looked with a human intelligence at the car, 
my pulse bounded with exulting rapture. Like the genius 
of my native land, he had risen above every storm, unfettered and 
FREE ! But my transports were soon at an end. He attempted 
to light on the balloon, and my heart sunk ; I feared his huge 
claws would tear the silk. I pulled my cord ; he rose, as I sank, 
and the blast swept him from my view in a moment. A flock of 
wild fowl, beat by the storm, were coursing below, on bewildered 
pinions, and as I was nearing them, I knew I was descending. A 
singular effect was now produced by my position. It was a double 
horizon, one formed by the outer edge of the upper cloud, and 
the other by the angle of the eye to the extreme strata of the 
storm over the earth. A breaking rift now admitted the sun. 
The rainbows tossed and gleamed ; chains of fleecy rack, shining 
in prismatic rays of gold, and purple, and emerald, ' beautiful 
exceedingly,' spread on every hand. Vast curtains of cloud 
pavilioned the immensity, brighter than celestial roses, or ' jasper, 
bdellium, or the ruby stone,' glittered around ; masses of mist 
were lifted on high, like steps of living fire, more radiant than 



328 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

the sun himself, when his glorious noontide culminates from the 
equator. A kind of aerial Euroclydon now smote my ear ; and 
three of the cords parted, which tilted my gondola to the side, 
fining me with terror. I caught the broken cords in my hand, 
but could not tie them. They had been dragged over the broken 
carboy of oil of vitriol, of which I have spoken, and had rotted 
asunder. 

The storm below was now rapidly passing away, and beneath 
its waving outline, to the southeast, I saw the ocean. Ships 
were speeding on their course, and their bright sails melting into 
distance : a rainbow hung afar, and the rolling anthems of the 
Atlantic came like celestial hymnings to my ear. 

Presently, all was clear below me. The fresh air played 
around. 1 had taken a noble circuit, and my last view was better 
than the first. I was far over the bay, ' afloating sweetly to the 
west.' The city, colored by the last blaze of day, brightened 
remotely to the view. Below, ships were hastening to and fro 
through the narrows ; and the far country lay smiling like an 
Eden. Bright rivers ran like ribands of gold and silver, till they 
were lost in the vast inland, stretching beyond the view ; the 
gilded mountains were flinging their purple shadows over many a 
vale ; bays were blushing to the farewell day-beams ; and now I 
was passing over a green island. 1 sailed to the main land ; 
saw the tall old trees waving to the evening breeze ; heard the 
rural lowing of herds ; heard the welcome sound of human 
voices; and finally, sweeping over forest tops and embowered 
villages, at last descended with the sun, among a kind-hearted, 
surprised, and hospitable community, in as pretty a town as one 
could desire to see, ' safe and well.' 



If I have told too long a yarn for so short a voyage, I crave 
the reader's mercy. My feat has not diminished the number of 
my friends, and nothing could increase Sophia Howard's love. 
She is now mine ; and when she wishes to amuse our little So- 
phia, as some childish casualty bids her weep, she takes her on 
her knee, and tells her ' about Pa's voyage in the sky,' until, 

' Throned on her mother's lap, she dries each tear, 
As the sweet legend falls upon her ear.' 



THE STONE-FLINGER OF CAM PEACHY. 329 

THE STONE-FLINGER OF CAMPEACHY. 

(ELPEDREROCAMPECHANO.) 

Whoever has been at Campeachy within the last twenty-five 
years, has probably seen, and must remember, a fellow of curious 
look and gait, wandering to and fro through the streets of the 
city. His nether garments have never been considered remark- 
able for their cleanliness or beauty ; his tattered sombrero de 
2>oja hangs ever slouchingly over his cunning and restless eyes ; 
and he is evermore to be seen poking his intrusive nose into 
other people's business ; not unblusldnglij., it is true, for the 
member of which I speak has always glowed and beamed as did 
the ' maintained salamander' of Bardolph, which FalstafF used as 
a sort of lantern, to light him about from tavern to tavern ; from 
the Boar's Head, and its dependencies, to all the adjacent tap- 
rooms, near and far, in London. I say most if not all people 
who have seen Campeachy, will remember the nondescript of 
whom 1 speak — El Pcdrero Campechmio, or the Stone-flinger, 
of that ilk. He is a well-educated and accomplished loafer, the 
very head of his tribe, having been brought up at the feet of 
loafers from childhood. No adventure was ever too arduous for 
his undertaking. lie would pick a pocket, or thresh a friend's 
enemy, for the same qtiid pro qiio, and with equal good will. 
He was eternally busy in the day time, about nothing ; for the 
moonlight evenings and the twilight hours were his only seasons 
of pecuniary harvest. His eye was an unerring, unerratic orb, 
in its wildest and most maudlin rollings ; and for hire or from 
caprice, he would take a stone in his right hand and send it to 
the distance of a quarter-mile with arithmetical precision. He 
could single out a man from a crowd, among thousands, and con- 
sign him to oblivion, without mistake or fear. In daylight, to 
see him, you would think him the busiest man alive. He was 
always to be observed running about the long wharf of the town, 
with a memorandum-book and pencil in his hand, taking notes 
of bales and boxes, as if he were the most anxious merchant in 
the place, and had immense consignments in his charge. Yet 
he had not a copper, of any kind, unless it were some gratuity 
for his scoundrel contests. No one ever understood better the 
science of projectiles, or loved better the bottle and the glass. 
Hence he inherited, by positive merit and common consent, the 
soubriquet of Pepe Nara7ijo, or Pepe Botella, in which he re- 
joiced. 



330 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

In one of the drunken scrapes of Pepe Botella, he had the 
misfortune to have his left side kicked into a palsy by an athletic 
fellow with whom he was contending. He never but partially 
recovered from the effects of this accident ; and while he passed 
along the street, the contrast between his sinister and dextral 
members was particularly striking ; one side being tottering and 
rickety, the other strong and lusty. The strength of the palsied 
portion of his body seemed only to have united itself with the 
hearty department, greatly adding to the force thereof. The 
offender, however, who produced this disaster, had reason to rue 
the day when he used his foot so discourteously. He stood in 
daily fear of his life ; and was at last found one moonlight evening, 
prostrate and dead in the street. A large stone lay near him, 
covered with hair and clotted blood ; his head was indented 
with a hideous wound, and the place where he lay, stained with 
the vital current. No one was seen in the neighborhood during 
the evening ; no words of strife were heard ; and the whole 
event was concealed in mystery. EL Pedrcro was observed to 
look very knowingly and satisfied, when told of the occurrence, 
and was even suspected of the act ; but it was impossible to pro- 
duce any satisfactory proof against him. 

The reputation of Pepe as a stone-flinger at last became fully 
established. He was even employed sometimes to avenge the 
wrongs of others, which he would do for a very small ' conside- 
ration.' A glass of spiritous fluid would generally be deemed 
by him a sufficient guerdon for almost any enterprise. 



There lived in Campeachy a licentious priest, named Juan 
de Raduan, who had become exceedingly hateful to many of the 
young men of the city, for his libertine propensities. Nothing 
certain, however, could be adduced against him. Vague suspi- 
cions and rumors alone were afloat respecting his conduct, and 
these at last gradually died away. The station of the Padre; 
the holy office he professed and filled, joined to the great rever- 
ence of the people for the priesthood ; all sei-ved to keep him 
secure, even if guilty, and to appear as it were in apotheosis, if 
innocent. The murmurs of suspicion being quelled, the holy 
villain sought occasion, at an evening confessional, to pour into 
the ear of a lovely damsel, one Isabella de Leon, the daughter 
of a princely house, the enticing accents and proposals of the 
basest passion. The affrighted girl fled from his presence in dis- 
gust, communicated the secret to her brother, and besought him, 
nay required of him, under the most solemn injunctions, that the 



THE STONK-FLINGER OF CAM PEACHY. 331 

circumstance should be communicated to no one living. The 
brother bit his pale lip, and swore obedience. 

The Semana Santa, or holy week, was near. At last it ar- 
rived. During this season, great solemnity prevails through the 
town; plaintive tones roll from the aisles and belfries of the 
cathedrals ; the penitent wail in the streets, and count their beads 
at every turn. Preaching is ' done' in the public places ; and 
the clergy are as busy in their voQation, as the faculty of a col- 
lege previous to commencement. 

One evening, in early twilight, the Padre Raduan took his 
station in an out-door pulpit, at the termination of the Barrio de 
Guadaloupe, and La Punta de Diamanta, streets of the city 
which form the two long angles of a triangle. The area in front 
of the pulpit was occupied by a tumultuous sea of people, bow- 
ing and kneeling in penitence and prayer. The preliminary ser- 
vices were over: the vesper incense had ascended, the ave Maria 
had ceased, and the Padre began his discourse. 

While this scene was passing, the traveller might have noted, 
in a green lane near the outskirts of the town, a tall youth, hold- 
ing low and anxious converse in the fading light with El Pedrero, 
the Stone-flinger. It was young de Leon. 

' He is a precious villain,' said the latter, ' that wretched Padre, 
and he must not live. He a Priest ! By the Holy Virgin, 
were it not for an oath, I would pierce his surplice with my own 
stiletto ! Now, Pepe, can I engage you to make his forehead 
and a stone acquainted ?' 

' Si Sehor,^ replied Botella ; 'but for what pay? I am no 
hireling murderer, Seiior ; and I can not perform this heavy job 
for a common reward. I must have my flask filled daily with 
the best liquor in your wine vault, for six months to come ; and 
I want also some money for my present necessities. What will 
you give ?' 

' Now, a dohlon de a una, and when your deed is done, ten 
more.' 

El Pedrero knew the potential value of gold, that slave of the 
dark and dirty mine. Li this he but imitated mankind in the 
mass, from Indus to the Pole. Where, and over whom does it 
not hold sway ? ' Gold, of all other,' saith the quaint Democritus 
his pen, ' is a most delitious objecte ; a sweet light, a goodly lus- 
tre it hath ; gratius anram quam solem intuemur, saith Austin, 
and we rather see it than the sun. Sweet and pleasant in get- 
ting, in keeping, it seasons all our labors ; intolerable pains we 
take for it ; base employment, endure bitter flouts and taunts, 
long journeys, heavy burdens ; all are made light and easy by 



332 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

this hope of gain. The sight of gold refresheth our spirits, and 
ravisheth our hearts, as the Babylonian garment and golden 
wedge did Achan in the camp ; the very sight and hearing sets 
on fire his soul with desire of it. It will make a man run to the 
Antipodes, or tarry at home and turn parasite, lye, flatter, pros- 
titute himself, swear and bear false witness ; he will venture his 
body, kill a king, murther his father, and damn his soul to come 
at it.' To the latter extreme, or near it, had El Pedrero been 
roused by the single dohJon de a una of de Leon. 

Slowly and stealthily the Stone-flinger and his employer made 
their way toward the Barrio de Guadaloupe. As they neared 
the great area by the Punta de Diamanta, they perceived that the 
evening torches and flambeaux had been lighted, and were shed- 
ding their fitful rays over the vast multitude. Tall wax candles 
by the pulpit enabled the many thousands around to see with 
perfect distinctness the splendid robes of the Padre Raduan. 
He was preaching with a drawling coldness; and evidently took 
more pains to gesture gracefully, and to see who of his female 
friends were among the assemblage, than to deliver the testimony 
of a man of God. 

On the very outskirts of the multitude, at the distance of six 
or seven hundred yards from the pulpit and priest, stood El 
Pedrero and his master for the time. 

'Can you see his eye, Seiior?' said the Stone-flinger, in a low 
voice. 

' No,' replied de Leon : ' the rays of the candles dazzle me.* 

' It is no matter,' added Pepe : ' I can see his face. That 
will do. Stand back, Seiior, and tell me where to strike him.' 

' In the middle of his forehead, between the temples ; dash 
out his brains, if you can ; the unrighteous wretch !' responded 
de Leon. 

' Stop a moment,' muttered Pedrero. 

This moment was spent in preparation. He poised the stone 
in his right hand, thrust forward his right leg, with a tragedian 
attitude, and lifting his hand, like a dying gladiator in his last 
clutch toward his victim, prepared to fling the stone, now raised 
uprightly in his dexter hand. 

The priest had warmed a little in his discourse, and in some 
ejaculation to Heaven had lifted his hand. 

' Now^s the time!' said de Leon. 

No sooner said than done. El Pedrero lifted his hand yet 
higher ; a slight whiz ! hummed over the heads of the multitude ; 
and the Padre dropped down in his place, the blood streaming 
from his forehead, and the air resounding with the lamentations 
and groans of the assemblage. 



THE STONE-F LINGER OF CAM PEACHY. 333 

Hundreds rushed to the pulpit. The Padre Raduan had fallen 
by the hand of some vile assassin. The uproar was dreadfuk 
Men shouted, women shrieked and fainted ; emissaries were de- 
spatched with the news of the Padre's death, (for he had expired 
in his pulpit,) to the different churches of the city. All was 
confusion. Ten minutes had not elapsed, when the bells of San 
Jose, San Francisquito, San Juan de Dios, and the old Cathe- 
dral of San Francisco, poured out upon the evening air their 
full-volumed descomrmmion-dij-gc against the dire offender, the 
Priest-slayer, the Unknown Man of Blood. 

All was of no avail. The shouting multitudes, as they bore 
away the dead body of the Padre, knew not of his murderer, 
nor was he ever identified. El Pedrero escaped, scot free. Is- 
abella de Leon was satisfied, and her brother avenged. 

Time would fail, should the writer of this hurried sketch at- 
tempt to relate all the adventures of El Pedrero. He has 
wrought ' twenty mortal murders' on as many crowns. Two 
priests are among the victims of his personal avarice, or hired 
enmity. In all his adventures, no one has ever been able to 
identify him. Testimony has been found useless against him. 
With an omnipresent alibi, he has ever eluded the law ; and still 
lives, to kill and to escape. 

His last act was perpetrated at the corner of the Castle San 
Pedro, (outside the v\alls of the city of Campeachy,) which di- 
vides the district of Santa Anna and Guadaloupe. He drew a 
stone from his doublet, and at the length of seven hundred yards 
smote a priest on the breast, who is, in consequence, afflicted with 
the asthma to this day. The secret of his power is known to 
few, but his person is familiar with every Campechean. He 
' bears a charmed life,' beyond the hmits of the laws ; for such 
is the incredible distance to which he can project a missile, that 
it is a matter of impossibility to procure evidence against him. 
His hand, or his employer's eye, can be only his witness. The 
suspected terror of all, yet the accused of none, he sustains him- 
self upon the fears of others. His iiiterested friends are numer- 
ous ; his employers the same ; and between them all, the Stone- 
flinger lives, of late years, more like a prince, than the loafer 
that he is. Wo to the head of that citizen who refuses him a 
glass, call for it when he will ! His laws are Draconian, written 
in blood ; and like that of the Medes and Persians, their code is 
unalterable. 



334 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



THE IDEAL. 

'Oh, Spirit-Land ! — thou land of Dreams ! 
A world thou art, of mysterious gleams ; 
Like a wizard's magic-glass thou art. 
Where the wavy shadows float by, and part. 
Visions of aspects, now loved, now strange. 
Glimmering and mingling in ceaseless change. 
Thou art like the depths where the seas have birth. 
Rich with the wealth that is lost from earth : 
All the bright flowers of our days gone by, 
And buried gems, in thy bosom lie.' 

I AM a lover of the ideal. I bow to those enchantments of 
the UTiagination, which come we know not whence or wherefore, 
to awaken a few evanescent throbs of pleasure in the heart, and 
to shed a (ew gushes of sunshine around the common walks of 
this working-day world. I love to give myself up to the guid- 
ance of my dreaming moods, and to say, ' Halloo, my fancy, 
whither wilt thou go T I deem that the great charm of existence 
lies, not in wailing because of the stern realities that we may not 
shun, but in seeking those bright lapses in the stream of time, 
illusive though they be, which sparkle into the soul with their ra- 
diance, and cause every nerve to thrill with momentary enthusi- 
asm. As sorrow sometimes rolls its unbidden blight over the 
spirit, so does pleasure there pour its lustre ; and of neither the 
one nor the other can we rightly discern the cause, commence- 
ment, or end. How often will a cluster of hopes, gathering 
thickly in the mind, clothed in hues of heaven, warm the bosom 
into transports which have no definite origin, and can be traced 
to none ; which fade by far too soon, and yet grow lovelier 
while they fade ? 

The shocks which our imaginary world sustains ; the earth- 
quakes which devastate its glorious demesnes, and shake to 
nothingness its thousand brilliant creations, are too frequent in 
manhood to render the influence of the Ideal abiding. Its mag- 
nificent pictures melt beneath the noontide of experience. We 
know what we have been ; we see what we are ; and, contrasting 
the raptures of the past with the faint visions of the present, are 
led to feel, and deeply too, that the ' golden exhalations of our 
dawn' were too beautiful for perpetuity. Some rude lesson from 
men diminishes our rich amount of romance. Coldness, deceit, 
the changes and forgetfulness of friendships that we deemed al- 
most indestructible, admonish us with a voice stern and unrelent- 



THE IDEAL. 336 

ing, that the radiance of ideality is limited to a narrow compass 
in our being, and that we soon recede from that shore, 

' Where every scene is pleasant to the view, 
And every rapture of the heart is new ; 
Where on the land and wave a light is thrown, 
Which to the morn of life alone is known ;' 

and that, whether we will or no, those enchantments are eluding 
our search, and those iris hues of delight rapidly * evanishing 
amid the storm.' 

It is with the mind as with the sky ; continued brightness 
would soon be wearisome. Like Macbeth, I have often been 
' a-weary of the sun.' 1 like those little passages of life which 
break the self-deception of the soul, and lead me to contemplate 
things as they are. This liking, too, is by no means incompati- 
ble with a passion for the ideal, but rather identical with it. One 
may give the reins to fancy, and journeying in thought from 
heaven to earth and from earth to heaven, may enjoy the transit 
without supposing it reality. This is, in my view, the acme of 
day-dreaming. We are prepared to wake with new vigor from 
the illusive reverie, fortified for the conflicts of the world ; for 
we know that we can sometimes shake off the latter, and in the 
twilights of spring or summer, or during the golden reign of 
autumn, command the former at our will. It is by the cultiva- 
tion of this spirit that the poet, the novelist, and the painter, have 
depicted their best conceptions. Shutting out the world for the 
nonce, yet retaining a sense of its continuance ; amid the urbane 
resumptions of cigarillos, or pipe, or over-generous cordial, they 
luxuriate and dream ; the air, the light, the view from an open 
window of some pleasant landscape, minister to their quietude: 
and thus, abstracted in meditation, they roll up the shadowy cur- 
tains of Reality, and spread before their mental gaze an El Do- 
rado and an Eden. 

Somebody — I believe it is Dr. Johnson — pronounces books 
to be dull friends. They may be so ; but they are glorious 
com'panions. They can not lend one money, but they can en 
rich his mind with incorruptible and unalienable affluence 
They can confer in gorgeous profusion the vast estates of ide- 
ality — the dominions and principalities of thought. And while 
they impart an enjoyment in all respects equal to worldly riches, 
they inculcate no sordid selfishness ; they never contract the 
heart ; and they leave its genial avenues unclogged by envy ; 
unpolluted by pride ; for knowledge ever humbles its votaries, 
even while it exalts them. 

But there are some grievous disappointments to which imagi- 



336 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

nation is subject ; namely, the changes that happen inevitably to 
the romantic fancies derived from human annals, and which form 
the ideal of history. We read of mighty conquerors and states- 
men, who have made rivers run with blood, or thrilled senates 
with resistless eloquence : we pore over the records of their lives 
by some partial contemporary, until we deem them demi-gods. 
We wish that we had lived in their day, and heard the rolling of 
their chariot wheels, or the musical thunder of their periods. 
Anon, we meet with authentic accounts of their private foibles, 
their inglorious passions, their petty iniquities, until they diminish 
in our eyes to the mere playthings of small impulses, the ignoble 
puppets of Whim. We forget Cicero the orator, and find him 
the pufF-seeker of a friend, soliciting the hyperbole of praise in 
an extravagant biography, and hinting at its reward. We see 
monarchs bribing historians to give fair colors to their fame, or 
posthumously shining in the doubtful authorship of an Ikon Bas- 
ilike. 

I have been marvellously shocked at the variations which have 
passed over my imagination in reference to the great characters 
of history. The trusty annalists who have dwelt more on their 
private than their public course, have almost destroyed my 
original portraits ; and although I began them fancifully ' in large,' 
they have left them 'in little.' From the heroes and heroines of 
Greece and Rome, down to the queens, ladies, kings, princes, 
and knights of European dominions, there has passed away the 
coleur de rose with which my fancy first invested them. They 
have come to appear like common people to me, and the great- 
ness they once wore to my spiritual eye, has gone like the pa- 
geant of a vision. I can not cite many instances here, but they 
are as numerous as the leaves of history. 

Among those great personages of historic fame, who have 
swayed monarchies by their nod, or been closely allied to regnant 
majesty, 1 look with the greatest interest upon those whose tastes 
and judgment have connected them with the success of genius 
and literature. I should like to have had a peep at that old 
Tuscanian Macsenas, and witnessed the pleasures and the affluence 
that he imparted to the gifted spirits by whom he was surround- 
ed ; making the sweet Mantuan to 'possess himself in much 
quietness,' and brightening the Sabine estate before the quick eye 
of Horace, until that satirist felt almost ready to forswear his 
haughty nil admirari. I should delight to have met them all 
together over a glass of that ancient and mellow Falernian, which 
Horace kept so long in his cellar, and felt upon my lips those 
gouts of an inspiration that used to find its way so often into 



THE IDEAL. 337 

deathless verse. But alas ! had I known them, I should doubt- 
less have witnessed many a vulgar scene ; many tableaux vivants 
of maudlin revellers, reposing under tables, quite overdone ; and 
been haunted to my grave with an oft-recurring vision of broken 
goblets, among lost streams of wine, rolling over the flooded 
board, and wasting upon unmindful nostrils the odor of delicate 
spices. 

To those monarchical friends of talent, who have shone as 
the patronizing beautifiers of our vernacular tongue, I have al- 
ways looked in a kind of misty admiration. How have I filled 
my fancy with pictures of Elizabeth, the rewarder of merit, the 
learned lady, the favorite of the gende Sidney, the friend of 
Shakspeare ; and beyond all, according to some loyal chroniclers, 
the possessor of that best religion * which triumpheth upon pride, 
and sits on the neck of ambition, humbly pursuing that infallible 
perpetuity unto which all others must diminish their diameters, 
and be poorly seen in angles of contingency.' I have painted 
her in my thought as a tall majestic woman, with an eye which 
warmed, while it awed the heart, and whose glance, pleasing, 
and commanding homage, filled her court with reflected sunshine ; 
her person stately as Juno, and marked by the befitting sweetness 
of a gracious queen. I have almost doated on what I supposed 
must have been about her smile. But like my fancy-sketch of 
the great Russian Empress Catharine, the partial hues have van- 
ished before the rays of truth, and the bright lineaments have 
gone. I have fallen upon Paul Hentzner's ' Journey thoroughe 
Englande,' in the year of grace m.d.xc.viii. ; and ah, what 
havoc hath he made ! Touching Elizabeth and her arrange- 
ments, he speakelh thus : ' Her presence chamber was strewn 
with hay, and therein were present the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
Bishop of London, and so ; first went gentlemen, barons, earles, 
knights, all richly dressed and bareheaded ; next wended the 
chauncellour, with seals in a silk purse between two, one of 
which carried the royal sceptre, the other y^ sworde of State, in 
a red scabbard, covered with fleurs de lis, and pointed upward. 
Next came the Queen ; * * her face long and wrinkled, her eyen 
small, but black and pleasaunt ; her nose a little hooked; her 
lips narrow, and her teeth black, a defect whereunto the English 
do seem subject, from their too great use of sugar. From her 
ears did depend two pearls, with exceeding rich drops ; she did 
wear false hair, ajid that red ; over which she had a small crown 
of Lunenberg table gold : her bosom was uncovered ; thence 
she was dressed in white silk, burdened with pearls, the size of 
beans, over which was a black mantle.' 

22 



33S PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

"When I read this, good heaven ! what a pattern of female 
grace and nobleness faded from my mind. This, then, was Ehz- 
abeth ! The two portraits shown by Hamlet to his mother were 
not more dissimilar than this and mine. Mine was a free draw- 
ing ; Hentzner's an unquestioned original. And was this the 
Queen for whom the bards of her day thought it an honor to 
weave their lays ; and who considered it the summum honuin vitce 
to bask in her royal favor? Was this the peerless personage in 
whose service the high-born Sidney fluttered and did the amiable ; 
in whose cause he fought and died i The very same. Oh flesh ! 
by partial pens how art thou glorified ! 

Talking of Sidney, leads me to say, that his case is another 
instance in my experience of the false Ideal. He has stood in 
the mirage of my conception, a knight unparagon'd ; a poet as 
full of personal grace as his verses are of beauty. He was the 
favorite of the most intellectual court in Europe ; the mark and 
model of his sex ; the cynosure of the ladies. He has appeared 
to me, clothed in the jptnyureum lumen of nobility ; the valiant 
oracle and pet of his fair sovereign ; walking and talking with 
her, in English, French, Italian, Scotch, Dutch,* ' and so ;' in 
fine, the very concrete of gentlemen. I have supposed him win- 
ningly tall and majestic ; easy as Adonis ; with his lace points all 
adjusted, and his bow superb. But Hentzner has dissolved the 
vision, by furnishing an engraved portrait, undoubtedly authentic, 
in which he is represented sitting clumsily on a bank, like a 
shepherd of Arcady, with a form fat, oily, and burly, a bulbous 
nose, a double chin, and eyes of a deplorably lack-lustre leer ! 
I shall never think of Sidney as a perfect courtier and 'preux 
chevalier again. 

It were a grievous list indeed that should contain all those al- 
terations which the stern pencil of truth has painted upon the 
first pictures of great people in my mind. It has substituted the 
coarse for the comely, and flung harsh shades over beauties of 
sky-tinctured grain.' Warriors have dwindled into Lilliputians : 
diplomatists into hair-brained invalids ; empresses into dowdies. 
Taking a fancy view of the Duke of Wellington, across the At- 
lantic, I have supposed him a lofty personage, six feet nine in his 
boots, with an eye like Mars, and a curl of disdainful dignity in 
his monstrous nose. But he is a little pocket edition of a man, 
with a bended back, a countenance in no wise prepossessing, and 
legs approximating to that parenthesis state called the bandy. 
Julius Caesar! how the late describers of that man have unde- 
ceived me ! 

• Elizabeth understood all these languages. 



THE IDEAL. 339 

Just SO with Talleyrand. I thought him a diplomatic weazel; 
ever wide awake, with ears erect, and ready to slip out of any 
negotiation that the finesse of court forecaste or private instruc- 
tions might suggest. But he is just the contrary. Instead of 
being filled with deceitful animation, his visage is soporific ; his 
manner languid, nay stupid; and the last portrait — the latest and 
best, I suppose — has sketched him asleep ! 

But because history darkens my ideal, shall I refuse to chase 
it ? ^ No, by my halidome ! I love the journeyings of thought. 
I will travel often over those exclusive railways of the mind ; 
passing by castles, towers, lakes, wide-watered shores and splen- 
did towns ; through fields made Champs Elysees by the poets, 
and over hills renowned in song. I have seen those who sur- 
passed my brightest beau-ideal — living, moving, breathing, be- 
ings. If I should see them again, something will have vanished 
to break the charm — to dissolve the spell. I choose to hug 
these camera obscura pictures to my heart ; though with reference 
to their characters, histories should be caught fibbing, and chron- 
iclers be falsified. 



340 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



JOHN SMITH. 

' men of pith, 

Sixteen called Thompson, and nineteen named Smith.' 

Bybov. 

My name is John Smith. The first important event of my 
life was my birth ; but of that my reminiscences are faint, of 
course. .John Jenkins Smith was my father's name ; and, until 
my twelfth year, I was called John Jenkins Smith, Junior ; the 
middle appellation being in compliment to the sir-names of my 
uncle and aunt. Increase and Abundance Jenkins. In the fitness 
of time, my father deceased. He was an estimable individual, 
and did a good business in the line of bar-soap ; the avails aris- 
ing from the sale of which article created a decent competency 
for the necessities of his surviving family. He was an industrious 
man, with habits uncommonly domestic. My mother, nine broth- 
ers, and seven sisters, lived to mourn his loss. 

After the demise of my father, it was my mother's wish and 
advice, that I should drop the Jenkins and the Junior from my 
title, and adopt the simple cognomen of John Smith. Persua- 
sion at last induced me to comply with her desires ; and dearly 
have I paid for my acquiescence. The simplicity of the name 
has been fruitful of mystery. Innumerable are the vexations and 
difficulties into which it has led me. "SVere I to relate them, in 
the swelling style of modern writers, I do verily believe that the 
world would not contain my books. But the task is too formid- 
able, even if I were fond of authorship, which, I thank heaven, I 
am not. My name forbids the thought. The wise may cogi- 
tate from the tripod, and the dunce twaddle on his stool. I 
shall not arise to push them from their places. Save in the Di- 
rectory and the census, I shall be nominis wnhra. 

When one arrives in a large city, it is a common simile to 
liken him to a drop of water falling into the ocean ; it mingles, 
and is lost, in the vasty deep. So I found it, when I left my 
native village ' up the river' for the metropolis, in more ways than 
one. I ascertained by a glance at the Directory, that I was one 
among hundreds who bore my personal appellation. Having 
passed my time from youth to early manhood in the country, the 
bustle and buzz of a vast city like this almost drave me crazy. 
Like John Jones, in the play of that name, ' I was excited.' 
Forthwith I made my way to the Adelphi. I had a fair share of 
money, and the picture of that hotel, hung in the steamboat cabin, 



JOHN' SMITH. 841 

had captivated my eye. Glancing at the travellers' book in the 
,bar-room, I perceived my name three times repeated. I began 
to think myself of consequence. ' Doubtless,' said I, ' the sev- 
eral coachmen who stood on the wharf with uplifted, beckoning 
whips, awaited my commands, and who ascertained my destina- 
tion, have come hither in advance, to record my arrival.' I was 
unsophisticated in those days. Those things which we chew the 
cud of wisdom withal, namely, eye-teeth, had not then been cut. 
I thought, with a pleasing sensation, of the truth of the old poet's 
remark, that one always finds ' the warmest welcome at an inn.' 

Purposes of business brought me to town. It was my inten- 
tion, after passing a year or two at mercantile apprenticeship in 
the city, to become a country trader ; and I had resolved from 
the first to make all the acquaintances I could. I was rejoiced 
to hear, the morning after my arrival, that several persons whom 
I did not see, had inquired after my health at the Adelphi. I 
knew I had many friends who had come to the Great Babel be- 
fore me ; but I had not the most distant suspicion that they would 
remember the ' gawkey,' as they used to call me, whom they 
knew at home. However, I solaced my mind with reflections 
on my growing importance, and indulged myself in pleasing an- 
ticipations of the success which these acquaintances would yet 
induce for me. 

I was fond of strolling through the streets in the morning, 
when the glitter and stir of fashion were abroad, and 1 never 
failed to walk myself hungry before twelve o'clock. An adver- 
tisement which I had inserted in the newspapers, of, ' Wants a 
place, a young man from the country, with an extensive knowl- 
edge of figures, who writes a good hand,' had been successful. 
1 had procured a situation, and was to enter upon its duties in a 
fortnight. Of course, I was delighted ; and remembering my 
boyish scrape-maxim, 'Dum vivimus vivamus,^ I resolved to enjoy 
my time. So, on each day at twelve o'clock, 1 was wont to re- 
sort to one of those famous ordinaries in Broadway, where all 
that the human appetite can crave is spread before the eye in 
rich profusion. ' A fig for the expense,' said I, ' the things are 
good, and I wish to make acquaintances for my employers.' 

At the resort of which I am speaking, it seemed to me that all 
the town convened. There, from eleven until five, were to be seen 
vast numbers of voracious aldermen, and opulent good-livers, de- 
vouring their respective lunches. Many a one of these, as he 
came out, went along the streets with a pleased and satisfied 
countenance, 

' Smiting his thigh, with blythe Apician glee, 
And licking eke his lips, right beautiful to see.' 



342 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

Of course, there were many faces that I came at last to know 
' passing well.' One individual, especially, in a suit of rusty 
brown, a bell-crowned hat, and a bombazine stock of blue, used 
every day to enter the apartment just at the time I did, and seat 
himself at the marble table next me. By degrees, we became 
slightly acquainted. Being a regular visitor, my name and lodg- 
ings were soon known to the bar-keeper. One morning, the 
man in brown picked up a letter from the floor under his table, 
and asked me if I had dropped it. I told him I had neither 
written nor lost any. 

' Very singular,' said he, without putting the epistle into ray 
hands ; ' I will make inquiries about it.' He showed it to the 
keeper, who opened it, and after casting his eye down the page, 
bowed politely to me, and said, ' Certainly, certainly, with pleas- 
ure.' The whole affair was an enigma ; but I was as green at 
that time as a new-hatched gosling. Supposing the person had 
mistaken his man, but not wishing to be outdone in courtesy, I 
bowed and smiled in return. 

Shortly after, when I had taken my usual meal, and was about 
to render the trifling equivalent, the keeper said to me : 

' This is Mr. .John Smith, I believe.' 

' Yes, that is my name.' 

' Got a certain note .about you ; the bill is all right ; put up 
your money.' 

I did n't understand him. 

' You are Mr. John Smith, at the Adelphi V 

* Yes. I am at that hotel.' 

' Very well, my dear Sir, the note is accepted. Your bills are 
paid until farther notice.' 

' Well, thought I, my friends are polite, that is truth. I have 
almost the freedom of the city. How curiously agreeable ! I 
continued to go for days and weeks together, and eat at this or- 
dinary, ' without money and without price.' He in the brown 
coat was ever present. 

At the end of the month, I received at my hotel a bill of forty 
dollars, for edibles used at the ordinary aforesaid. I hurried to 
the place, and demanded an explanation. 1 was informed that 
the man in brown had given a letter to the keeper, under my very 
nose, requesting lunches for two every morning, the bill to be 
sent monthly to .John Smith, at the Adelphi. References were 
given, and had been answered, all by the same hand ! 

It was a broad hoax; and after paying the money, as I was 
obhged to do, (it was left * to my honor ' that potent opener of 
purse-strings,) I found that one of the three John Smiths whose 



JOHN SMITH. 343 

aames were written at the Adelphi, was a chevalier <ri?idusfrie, 
who passed as my friend at the lunch, and my cousin John at 
the hotel. He came down with me in the steam-boat. I never 
saw him after he was * Mowed.'' This was the first practical attack 
on my name ; but by how many dozens was it not the last ! Let 
me go on. 

There is scarcely any body who has not been in love, as often 
as once, at least. I have had my flame, but my name quenched 
it. About the third month of my mercantile apprenticeship, I 
was induced on a certain evening to attend one of those convo- 
cations, a sacred concert ; and at first sight, I became attached 
to a lady who was attached to the choir. She loolsed like a di- 
vinitv, she sano- like an ano-el. 

I followed her to her house, when the concert broke up, to as- 
certain her residence ; and from that time, my life was one wild 
dream of suspense and passion. I used to see her every day or 
two at the window, and sometimes at church. A good-looking 
young man, who lodged at the Adelphi, and for whom I had 
often been taken, seemed to be pursuing the same object. When 
I went in that direction, he generally walked a few yards behind 
me, as constant to my trip, as the shadow to the substance ; but 
as he went beyond, I supposed he had friends farther on, in the 
same street ; for he jpassed the house, whereas I saw nothing 
worth a step beyond, and used to ' wheel about' like a militia- 
man, directly in front of the domicil, when my eye had drunk in 
its dizzy poison from the window. One evening, just at twilight, 
I saw my Adelphi friend standing on the steps of my lady's 
dweUing. Good heavens! Perhaps he knew her. I sought my 
hotel with a spirit of envy, that I find it hard to describe. Was 
that man my rival ? 

The next day I received a scented note, in a fine crow-quill 
hand, which ran as ensueth : 

'No , Street. 

' Mr Dkar John : We do uot know each other well, for we have been 
thwarted by the presence of untoward circumstances; but surely, my dear, 
my only John, the language of my eyes must have convinced you that 
since we first met, my heart has been wholly yours. Come to-morrow 
evening at eight, and in a walk of a few moments, I will convince you, if 
words can do it, of the unalterable affection of your devoted 

* Catharine Wallace. 
'John Smith, Esq., ^rfcZp/n.' 

I have a notion that my punctuality die next evening was a 
model of mercantile precision. As the town-clocks were clang- 
ing eight, my hand was on the knocker of the Wallace door. A 
very attentive ' color' person' answered my call, and in a moment 



344 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

after my inquiry, the arm of Miss Wallace was in mine, trembling 
with hurry and agitation. We walked for the space of nearly ' a 
block,' without the utterance of any thing but low interjections 
of pleasure, and an occasional remark upon that inexhaustible 
subject, the weather. 

We turned into Broadway. Here, in the blaze of gas lights, 
we met abruptly, two gentlemen, who turned after passing us, 
and striding hastily a few paces before, like Othello's lady, they 
' turned again,' and as I was on the point of pouring out some 
tender sayings, one of the fellows, staring at the face of my fair 
companion, exclaimed : 

* Good gracious ! Miss Wallace, is that you V 

It was my tracking friend, of the Adelphi. I knew his voice 
instantly. The lady dropped my arm, as if she had received a 
death-shot. 

' Why are you walking with this man, and how did you come to 
know him V Miss Wallace answered with a faltering voice, that 
she did not know me, but had mistaken me for himself. ' Dear 
John,' said she, did you not get my note this morning ? I ex- 
pected you to walk with me, and not a person with whom I have 
no acquaintance whatever.' 

Guess my surprise. 1 was, as the Kentuckians phrase it, * an 
entire stranger.' The gallant began to bluster. 

'Will — you — just — permit — me — to — ask — you,' said he 
to me, cocking his hat fiercely o' one side, and drawling his 
words, sotto voce, through his set teeth, ' who the devil you are ? 
what you are here for V what's your name ? and what you are 
aher? (syncopating the last word with a broad inflection of the 
first syllable.) I have seen you at the Adelphi, and I begin to 
think you are a puppy.' 

' Puppy, 1 am none,' said I coolly, for I hate fighting, ' and 
my being v.ith this lady at present, is the result of concert. I re- 
ceived a note from her this morning, requesting an interview.' 

' Liar !' said the gentleman. 

' That phrase,' I responded meekly, ' would not be borne, if 1 
considered you a good judge of the truth in the present case. I 
happen to have the note in my pocket, fcfir ; and as you are very 
inquisitive, let me return the compliment, and ask ijoiir name T 

' My name, sa ; I am not ashamed of my name, sa, as you ap- 
pear to be of yours; my name, sa, is John Smith !' 

'And so is mine. Here's the heart of the mystery. I see at 
once that the similarity of our names has been the cause of this 
error. Your note fell into my hands. I never spoke to this 
lady, before to-night, in all my life, though I have for some time 
occasionally seen and admired her, at a distance.' 



JOHN SMITH. 34(5 

We were friends in a moment. The young damsel had acci- 
dentally made his acquaintance, a week or two previously, after 
an extensive interchange of oglings, at churches, and other public 
resorts, and they were, it was plain to see, quite desperate with 
each other. I could not help comparing myself to the man in 
the play, whose servant says to him ; ' Maister, ar' n't your name 
Gregory V ' Yes, Sir R. Gregory.' ' So is mine.' ' Ah, then 
your name is similar.^ ' No, master, my name ar' n't Similar, 
my name 's Gregory !' 

These amusing reflections were but a momentary gleam of 
sunshine on the cloud which darkened my spirit. My dream of 
love was broken. x\nother John Smith had stepped into my 
bower of hope, and plucked the brightest rose it ever grew. I 
became ' melancholy and gentleman-like ;' went to conventicles 
with great regularity, and read a multitude of books. By de- 
grees I began to have quite a passion for literature, and tried my 
hand in the light department, as a producer. With the assistance 
of Ossian, and a rhyming dictionary, I made some poetry, and 
sent it to a popular weekly journal. It was entitled 'A River 
Scene,' and bore for its motto the following couplet from some 
grand inco7i7iu : 

' 'T is sweet, upon the impassioned wave, 
To watch the little fishes swim.' 

Ambitious of distinction, I wrote my name in full at the top of 
the piece. What kind of reception, think you, did it encounter? 
Reader, read : 

'John Smith's poetry is received, and has gone to that vast receptacle 
of things lost for the present upon earth, on the cover of which it is thus 
written: 'Rejected Balaam: Clauduntur in (Etcrnam nodem.'' We would 
advise John Smith to give up his visions of fame. Let them dissolve into 
airy nothing, for they produce nothing, and out of nothing, nothing comes. 
No man, with exactly his two names, need expect glory below the sun. 
The last one is not the objection ; for the Jones's, the Browns, Thompsons, 
and Jacksons, with many other names, might compete with it in point of 
numbers ; but the baptismal prefix of John, makes the title no name at all ; 
and thus, if we mistake not, has the matter been ruled in courts of justice. 
We beg our correspondent to drop either the lyre or his name ; for he will 
labor in vain for renown, unless he prays the legislature for a divorce from 
his present cognomen. 

I ' John Smith, John Smith, oh Phoebus ! what a name 

To fill the speaking trump of future fame." 

This unequivocal compliment almost extinguished my lyrical 
propensities. I was convinced that John Smith would never 
make any respectable sensation in literature. Cruel thought ! A 
rose would smell as sweet, according to Shakspeare, even if it 
were called ipecacuanha, as by any other name. Why then, 



346 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

from such a cause, should a barrier be placed against the aspira- 
tions of an ambitious mortal ? The idea was not endurable. I 
determined to be even with the editor who had so crucified my 
lines. A rival publication had offered prizes for an Essay, a 
Tale, and some poetry. It wanted a month before the meeting 
of the committee. I spent a fortnight on one poem. The paper 
in question was great in a small way, and bore on its cover a 
learned motto, ' from the Greek of Alcaeus.' The time arrived ; 
the committee convened ; the award was made ; and what was my 
delight on reading in the public journals the following announce- 
ment : 

'NOTICE. 

♦ The committee appointed to examine the pieces of prose and poetry, 
designed for the prizes in the ' Oriental Olympiad and Weekly Sunburst,' 
beg leave to report, that after a close examination of the matters confided to 
their discrimination, they have come to a decision. Private notice has al- 
ready been made to the modest and successful authors of the Essay and 
Tale. Before giving the name of the victorious writer of the poem to the 
world, the committee desire to state, that with reference to the two baskets 
of accepted and rejected productions, now in the office of the Sunburst, 
they cannot make a more fitting comparison, than by likening them to the 
figs of Jeremiah ; (Jer. xxiv. 2.) ' One basket had very good figs, even like 
the figs that are first ripe ; and the other basket had very naughty figs, 
which could not be eaten, they were so bad.' The committee now pro- 
ceed, with a feeling of serene and solemn exultation, to commit to the pub- 
lic eye at this era, and to that which shall lift its lid in future ages, the 
name of the distinguished person who has won the guerdon of twenty-five 
dollars, and a year's gratuitous subscription to the Olympiad and Sunburst. 
It is John Smith, Esq., of New- York. He will readily comprehend his pu- 
tative identity, when the committee remark, that his effusion commences 
with a spirited invocation to the Nine. The committee will be prepared to 
meet him, and to administer into his hands the twenty-five dollars, and a 
year's receipt for the popular journal aforesaid, on Tuesday evening next, 
at six o'clock, in the saloon of the City Hotel. That the author may be 
received without the embarrassment of self-introduction, he is requested to 
wear a white favor in the lappel button-hole of his coat ; whereupon, on his 
entrance, he will be introduced to the company, and receive the pecuniary 
tribute due to his extraordinary genius. Many ladies, amateurs, and litera- 
ry gentlemen, will be present. 

' Nov. 25. eod. ass. dif.' 

I read this notice over at least forty times, before the appointed 
evening. On that day, after dinner, I dressed with studied neat- 
ness, and turning down my collar, a la Byron, brushed my red- 
dish locks, Apollo-Uke, around my forehead, in a style of sub- 
lime confusion, and awaited with a palpitating bosom the proud 
moment when I should enter the saloon. I paused some thirty 
minutes after the appointed time, so that expectation should be 
on tiptoe. At last I sallied forth, and with a queer feeling of 
transport opened the door of the saloon and entered. There 



JOHN SMITH. 347 

was a collection of people ; and at one side ol' the room, like 
stinted wall-flowers, stood aline of wo-begone-looking individuals, 
to the number of fifteen, each with a white favor in his bosom, 
but with such diversified garments ! ' Motley was their only 
wear.' I was surprised, bewildered. At the request of the com- 
mittee, tendered through their chairman, I took my station ' in 
line.' A subdued snicker ran through the room, as two more 
persons, bearing white favors, entered, and stepped by direction 
into the ranks below me. I stole a glance at my comrades. 
They were silent, grim, and sad to see. We all of us looked 
like a small company, detailed for private exercise, from ' the 
great army of martyrs.' 

At last the chairman rose, and waving his hand loftily, said : 
' An unexpected duty, ladies and gentlemen, devolves upon the 
humble person who now addresses you. Called to my office at 
a moment of peculiar excitement, I wish to discharge its duties 
with approval. I expected to-night, in the presence of you all, 
to pay a delegated honor to the genius of one bright son of song. 
But I am obliged to select him from yon troop of tuneful worthies 
now arranged before the assembly, every one of whom, by a 
singular concatenation of parental tastes, bears the name of John 
Smith r 

I could have evaporated through the key-hole. My first im- 
pulse was to cut and run. A second thought told me, I might be 
the John Smith, and I determined to see the farce out. 

' In this state of uncertainty,' continued the chairman, * the 
only method of arriving at the successful author is to read the 
accepted lines.' 

He began to read them with the lungs of a Stentor, and the 
gestic grace of an elephant. They were not mine, that was cer- 
tain; poor, drawling, spiritless stanzas, mere verbiage to mine. 
My contempt for the committee was unbounded. 

But a person now jumped out from our row, with the quick- 
ness of a Narraganset pacer ; bowed, was identified as the au- 
thor, and took his perquisites. When he wheeled again, and 
made a derisive inclination of the head to the rest of us unsuc- 
cessful essayists, I did instantly, by the sinister smirk of his face, 
recognise the ecstatic entity. It v,as the rascal in brown, whose 
bill 1 had paid at the lunch ! 

I remember little of the occasion after this. I only recollect 
that some of the ' great rejected' swore with emphasis, that they 
had been sadly misused. Each man contended for the pecuHar 
merit of his own composition, every one of which, even to the en- 
tire eighteen, opened with an appeal to the muse for assistance. 



343 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

One man, who seemed a little excited with wine, declared that 
' he came there for the prize, and the prize he would have ; he 
had already engaged a supper below, for himself and a few friends, 
on the strength of the prize ; ' and I would like to know,' he 
added, with a sardonic grin of defiance, ' who in the name of 
Parnassus is a-going to pay the bill ? My heart is heaving and 
bursting with emotion. What is to requite us all for our disap- 
pointment ? 

' Of our soul-stirring hopes we are in at the death, 
And we stand, as in battle array, 

To find our renown but a bodiless breath, 
That vanisheth away !' ' 

' Messieurs Smith,' said the chairman, entirely disregarding the 
loquacious member, ' you are dismissed. Your badges, beside 
being emblems of peace, which will prevent any wranglings 
among yourselves, are also signs that you feel independent, and 
ask no favors.'' Here the company laughed, in the manner of a 
certain popular actress, ' like hyenas.' 

How the company broke up, I know not. I was the first at 
the door, and walked up Broadway with my hat in my hand, al- 
though the weather was drizzling. I have never entirely recov- 
ered from the acidity of spirit which that sore discomfiture entail- 
ed upon me. I had been crossed in love and literature ; and my 
coming days seemed only to me, a helpless wanderer on the 
ocean of time, like ' breakers ahead.' And so they have proved. 
I have been advertised in the newspapers ; jiersecuted by fe- 
males whom I knew not ; had callow bantlings laid on my door- 
steps. In short, I have suffered every thing but death ; and all 
for my name. In vain do I attempt to console myself, by think- 
ing of one great name like mine, the captain, who was saved by 
the Indian girl, Pocahontas, and two that are ' similar,' the re- 
nowned Horace and James, the wittiest men living. I am still 
plodding along the vale of existence, looking at the bright steep 
of fame in the distance, knowing it ' impossible to climb.' My 
name hangs to my tail as heavy as the stone of Sysiphus. I al- 
most wish I was entirely defunct. 

Having long ago removed from the Adelphi, in consequence 
of a ' collapse' in its prosperity, I have got a home of my own, 
and am well to do in the world. But I am not happy. I disburse 
the postage for a weekly mass of letters, of which three in five 
are intended for others. I read notices concerning me, hyme- 
neal and obituary, several times in a month. I have been waited 
upon simultaneously, by persons who had come to wish me joy, 
in the expectancy of a punch-drinking, and by rival tomb-stone 



JOHX SMITH. 349 

cutters, desirous of a job ' to my memory,' from the surviving 
members of my bachelor household. I pay twice my own' 
amount of bills. A John Smith lives next door, to whom half 
my choice rounds and sirloins, selected personally in the market, 
for I love good provant, are sent without distinction. My name is 
a bore, and my life a burden. Touching the debts I have paid, 
which were not my own, they have harassed me beyond measure. 
Such is the perplexity arising from their constant and unavoida- 
ble occurrence, that I begin to think myself a member of that 
class of reprobates, mentioned by St. Paul, in his Epistle to the 
Romans, who have been given up by Divine Providence, ' to do 
those things which are not. convenient.'' Heartily do I wish I 
could do as the Druids of old did, who contracted earthly debts 
for themselves and others, and gave promissory notes, payable in 
the other world. 

But I forbear to recite my infelicities. I skip over some hun- 
dreds, and come to the latest. Yesterday morning the following 
police report met my eye : 

' JoHx Smith, a new offender, was on Monday last committed to Bride- 
well, charged with having stolen several descriptions of clothes from various 
hotels in Broadway. He formerly made his home at the Adelphi, where 
he practised his light fingered arts for a considerable time. He was at one 
period ' well-off,' and lived in Broadway, but his thieving propensities have 
brought him up, at last, to a full stop. Bail having been procured, he is 
now at large, but so well known, that his career is now comparatively 
harmless.' 

This is the latest, but not the last. I have met scores of ac- 
quaintances since yesterday, and they all shun me as if they 
scented in my garments the air of a jail ; all but one puppy, and 
he asked me ' when I got out!' There is ample botheration in 
store for me. Its hind I know not, but the quaiitity must be 
enormous. I will bear it no longer. I have booked myself for 
Albany to-morrow ; and if I am not released from my name by 
the House, I will go, for refuge, to that narrow house appointed 
for all living ; and on my tomb-stone shall be recorded, in good 
'slap-up' Latin, '■Sic transit tristitia Joha?ines SmithiT 



350 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



THE SNAKE EATER 



' Some strange commotion 

Is in his brain : he bites his lip, and starts ; 
Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground, 
Then lays his finger on his temple ; straight 
Springs out into fast gait ; then stops again, 
Strikes his breast hard ; and then anon he casts 
His eye against the moon ; in most strange posture 
We have seen him set himself.' 

Shaks : Henry Viii. 

A FEW years ago, near the sunset of an autumnal day, I 
reached a populous town on the banks of the Mississippi. An 
accident to the steam-boat, wherein I had embarked, and by which 
many lives were lost through the carelessness of an ignorant and 
drunken engineer, had compelled the directors of the boat to stop 
with the remaining company, and repair the damages that had 
occurred. 

Alas ! there were damages and evils on board that unpretend- 
ing craft, v^'hich were beyond the reach of mechanist or chirur- 
geon. The dead were strewing the deck ; fragments of the 
boiler, and broken wheels, were lying around ; and masses of 
soot and cinders from the unclean pipes blackened the deck. 
On every side were corpses, and wailing friends, and tearful eyes. 
A few settees had been brought up from the cabin, and on the 
mattresses with which they were covered, the dead were laid. It 
was an awful scene. Two hours before, all was well ; and every 
heart seemed bounding with the rapid impulse of life and hope. 
I myself escaped by a miracle. I was seated at the stern of the 
boat, near the end window of the cabin, over the rudder, watch- 
ing, as is my wont, to see the turbulent waters boil around the 
keel, and mark the landscape flit by and recede. A noise like 
an earthquake, which made the shuddering boat recoil many 
yards ; a rush of hot steam through the broken windows ; the hiss- 
ing of the pieces from the boiler, as they dropped into the river ; 
and after one sad pause of an instant, the shrieks and groans of 
the dead and dying, and the surviving mourners ; these were the 
signs which betokened the appalling disaster, and convinced me 
visibly, for the first time, what a vast amount of pain and misery 
can be crowded into a passing moment. 

It is a sight of horror to behold the strong man smitten down 
in his might ; to see the pride of womanhood defaced and blighted 



THE SNAKE EATER. 351 

by sudden death ; to hear the lamentations of grief and despair, 
where but a httle time before were heard the hght laugh oC 
pleasure, and the tones of delight. How distant was the thought 
of harm, from each and all ! Truly it is said by the great bard 
of nature, ' We know what we are, but not what we shall be.' 
We weave the garlands of joy, even by the precipice of death ; 
we disport in the sunbeam, unmindful of the storm that is boom- 
ing afar, and will soon be at hand ! 

The sun descended as we entered the town, which was situated 
on ascending grounds near the river. A swell of upland, over- 
looking near at hand a few patches of green, which 1 took to be 
cotton fields, and which apparently commanded an extended 
view of the shores and course of the great Father of Rivers, 
stretched rearward from the place. Overcome with excitement 
and gratitude for my deliverance, and seeing also that there 
had thronged to the wharf a large number of citizens, sufficient 
for every purpose of charitable assistance toward the sufferers, 
and the dead on board of the steam-boat, I selected that portion of 
my luggage which had not been destroyed, and after seeking an 
hotel, made the best of my way to the upland of which I have 
spoken. I felt like one snatched from the grave ; and deeply 
impressed with the sense of the danger from which I had escaped, 
through the watchfulness of a benignant Providence, I determined 
to seek some haunt of retirement, and quiet my agitated spirits 
with thankful meditation. 

When I gained the eminence, 1 found that the view was cal- 
culated to heighten and expand all the feelings with which my 
heart was surcharged, to the overflow. A few gorgeous clouds, 
bedight in crimson and purple, were sailing in glory along the 
melancholy west ; dark cypresses, hung to their tops with trailing 
clusters of wild vine, colored with mingled violet, amber, and 
emerald, stood in relief before the horizon ; while afar, on either 
hand, the great Mississippi was seen rolling along with a kind of 
quivering radiance, and exhibiting, even at that distance, the tur- 
bulent might, which makes it seem like a prostrate Niagara. At 
a distance, in each extremity of the view, it was lost in dark 
woods and misty head-lands ; an emblem, most striking at the 
moment, of that obscurity which, like the shadow-curtain in the 
vision of Mirza, overhung the stream of life and time, making of 
the Past a dream, and of the Future a vast unknown. 

It is impossible to describe the sensations which animate the 
bosom of an American, as he looks at this running ocean, and the 
long, long vale through which it rolls. He gazes onward with 
the eye of anticipation to the not distant period, when that al- 



352 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

most interminable stretch of landscape shall become bright with 
towns, and vocal with the sounds of human industry ; when the 
busy hum of scholars at their tasks, of artists at their labors, of 
the husbandman folding his flocks, or garnering the rich treasures 
of the harvest, shall succeed the meanings of the cypress, and the 
mingled bowlings of roaming beasts of prey, and yet wilder In- 
dians ; when the light of civilization and religion shall extend 
over forests and savannahs, until the progress of our people 
through the dominions of the receding Aborigines, shall be, in 
the expressive words of Scripture, ' as the morning spread upon 
the mountains : a great people, and a strong ; of whom there 
hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, to 
the years of many generations.' 

As I turned to survey the prospect, I saw at no great distance 
from the spot where I stood, a white tent, or pavillioji, surmount- 
ed with a parti-colored flag, which was waving in the evening 
breeze, and on which I read the words, ' The Snake Eater.' 
The tent was open on one side like a door, before which there 
was a curtain. Benches were placed in an amphitheatrical form 
before the tent, which were then filling with people. The faint 
glimmer of an early lamp was perceivable behind the dark cur- 
tain ; and, moved with curiosity, I bent my steps toward the as- 
semblage. I paid die requisite sum to the person who kept the 
gate of a picket-fence which surrounded the amphitheatre, and 
took my seat among the crowd, in the open air. 

Twilight had now set in, and the twinkling of the stars could 
be seen on the broad bosom of the Mississippi, as it moved in 
noiseless solemnity toward the ocean. The cypresses assumed 
the semblance of weird and ghastly forms against the sky ; and 
the occasional sweep of a belated hawk from the far-off" prairies, 
with his dismal scream, gave token that the day had died, and 
that its dirge was sounding. 

Presently, at the tinkle of a litde bell, the curtain of the tent 
was lifted. A young man was seated at a table, with a box be- 
fore him, covered with glass, and apparently subdivided into two 
or more drawers. He seemed about eight-and-twenty years of 
age ; his face was thin, and a leaden wanness overspread his fea- 
tures ; but his sunken eye had that supernatural brightness so 
often seen in the eyes of the consumptive. His voice, though 
faint, was musical, but interrupted by an occasional cough ; and 
as he removed his cravat, and turned his wristbands over the cuffs 
of his coat, he said : 

' The company has assembled to see the Snake Eater. If any 
one wishes to satisfy himself with regard to the reptile which I 



THE SNAKE EATER. 353 

am now about to devour, in the presence of you all, and to re- 
store again ironi my throat, aHve, he will please draw nigh.' 

He turned the closed cover of the box over toward the au- 
dience, as he made this observation, and disclosed to the sight a 
hideous rattlesnake. It was coiled ; and when disturbed, eleva- 
ted it spiry head from its circle, and while its forked tongue play- 
ed with a rapid motion, it darted against the glass in vain attempts 
to escape, while its rattles continued to quiver, with a violent and 
whizzing sound, accompanied by that apparent flattening of the 
head, which denotes the highest pitch of resentment. Its dilated 
eye shot fire ; and the coarse scales on its contorted form grew 
rugged in its anger. 

After this expose, the Snake Eater placed the box in its original 
position. A chilly shudder ran through the assembly, when, af- 
ter turning his back to the beholder, he bent his face for a mo- 
ment at the edge of one of the drawers, with a kind of chuckling 
sound, and drew forth the horrid reptile with his hand. The 
snake now seemed languid and passive, though the rattles con- 
tinued to sound. He placed the head of the venomous serpent 
to his lips ; he opened his mouth, and the long spire began to de- 
scend. It was an appalling sight to see that huge monstrum hor- 
rendum making his way into the throat of a human being. The 
cheeks of the young man began to dilate, and his complexion be- 
came a livid purple. His eyes seemed bursting from their sock- 
ets ; masses of foam gathered about his lips, and he looked as 
if in the severest struggles of the last mortal agony — as if ' tast- 
ing of death.' Several of the audience shrieked with affright. 

After apparently mumbling and crunching his fearful meal, the 
Snake Eater again partially opened his lips, and the forked tongue 
of the reptile was seen playing, like threads of bright red fire, be- 
tween them. Presently it began to emerge. It moved very 
slowly, as if held back by other serpents that had preceded it, in 
the awful deglutition of its master. As the long, loathsome folds 
hung from his lips, and continued to extend, the features of the 
Snake Eater assumed their wonted aspect ; and in a moment, the 
reptile had emerged, was re-placed in the box, and the feat was 
accomplished. 

After seating himself for a few seconds, to recover from the 
perilous execution of his task, the Snake Eater arose and ad- 
dressed the audience. He desired them to believe that he had 
wished not to appal, but to surprise them. There was, he ac- 
knowledged, an art in what he had done, but it was a mysterious 
and undiscoverable one. ' They call me mad,' he added, bit- 
terly, * and a conjurer j but a conjurer I am none, and though I 

23 



354 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

have been mad, I am not now ; yet often do I wish I were. You 
will denominate my calling one of foolish hazard, and perhaps of 
disgust ; but did you know all, you would judge of me better. I 
thank you for your attendance ; and if I have succeeded in sur- 
prising you, my aim has been won.' 

The audience, in the enthusiasm of western feeling, gave the 
performer three hearty cheers, and retired with wonder-stricken 
faces. I lingered behind until the last had departed, and step- 
ped into the tent, where the Snake Eater had diawn a few eatables 
from his knapsack, which he was discussing with considerable 
relish. I found him sociable, but sad. By degrees, my obser- 
vations excited a sympathy in his mind ; and, as we sat, toward 
midnight, in his solitary house of canvass, the dark Mississippi 
rolling below, the pale stars fretting the vault above, and the far 
West stretching in dimness around, he thus began : 



THE SNAKE EATERS STORY. 

' I AM not, my friend, what you see me. Though regarded here- 
about as one who has dealings with ' familiar spirits and wiz- 
ards,' I am only a heart-broken man, the child of sorrow, and al- 
most without hope. I do not speak thus for your sympathy ; for 
human sympathy can at best but awaken afresh the wells of 
mournful tenderness in my breast, without pouring one ray of 
sunshine upon the troubled fountains ; they must flow on in 
darkness, without a prospect of day. Listen to me. 

' Eight short years ago, with the spirit of adventure stirring 
within me, I came as it were directly from the walls of a univer- 
sity, in one of the Atlantic states, to this ' far country.' I came 
with prodigal endowments from my father ; and seeking the then 
frontiers of civilization, embarked in trade with settlers and In- 
dians. I bought furs and sold all kinds of mercantile riches. I 
prospered ; my capital re-doubled itself, and in all respects was 
prosperous. You may perhaps desire to know my motive for 
thus leaving the charms of society, and seeking the seclusion of 
the wilderness. It was the strongest of motives, human affection. 
An uncle had preceded me. He had a ward, to whom I had 
been deeply and devotedly attached from my childhood. She 
was the paragon of her sex. I speak not as a rhapsodist, or with 
enthusiasm ; for the loveliest being that ever came from the 
hands of God into this lower world could not excel her for 
beauty. She made that beauty perfect, by the graces of a mind, 
pure and clear as the forming diamond. Her voice was melody; 
her smile a burst of living and pearly light ; and her calm blue 



THE SNAKE EATER. 3-55 

eyes were the sweet expositors of a sinless affection. The young 
peach, when the airs and beams of summer have awakened itS 
ri'pening blushes, or the pomegranate, as it glows among leaves 
that tremble to the rich chant of the nightingale, surpassed not 
her cheeks, for bloom or loveliness, when her fair hair was divi- 
ded on her brow, and fell in masses of waving and silken gold 
around them. Truly, I loved her with my whole soul. She was 
my idol ; my cynosure ; the centre of every desire, and the ob- 
ject of every aspiration. 

* We were married. Time went on, and brought me a bud 
from the rose diat I had established in my green bower of home. 
We were blest indeed. Aloof from society, though we missed a 
few of its luxuries, we suffered none of its vexatious and demor- 
aUzing corruptions. On Sabbath days, we rode many miles 
through the wilderness, to worship our Maker in his sanctuary, 
and hear the word of life from the lips of those who journeyed 
through the forest on missionary enterprises, and for the edifica- 
tion of the beheving ; ambassadors from a court, of which the 
most noble court on earth affords not the faintest emblem. 

• On the day that our dear little Sarah attained her second 
year, she was seated by my counter, and her mother was stand- 
ing by, when three fierce-looking Indians entered the store. 
They had evidently travelled a long way, for their leggins were 
torn and dirty, and their feet were almost bare. I recognised 
one of them instantly, as The Crouching Wolf, a desperate being, 
who hung alternately around the skirts of the settlements, begging 
for rum, or getting it in barter for small peltry, which he obtained 
in the chase. Just one year before, he had visited me for the 
purpose of procuring the fire-water, or ardent spirit. I refused 
him, and he left me with a vow of future vengeance. 

"Hoogh!' said he, as he reeled up, with his gruff-looking 
companions, toward the counter, where my child was playing, 
and my wife stood : ' The Crouching Wolf said he would come 
back. He wants the talking water; he wants that or — revenge. 
He will have one /' 

' I tried to reason with him, but he was deaf to reason. He 
had already tasted from the flagon of one of his red comrades, 
and the fumes were in his brain. 

* ' Come, medicine-man, the Wolf wants the fire-milk. W^here 
is it ? He can not wait. His spirit is up, and his forehead is 
warm.' 

' I saw he grew desperate, but my resolution was fixed : I 
sternly denied him. It was a fatal denial. 

' He stepped back a few paces, growled some gututral senten- 



356 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

ces to his companions, and the three then advanced toward my 
child. I was motionless, and paralyzed with terror. As the 
Wolf approached my daughter, he drew a tomahawk from his 
belt, and flourished it on high. I sprang toward him, but was 
pushed back by his companions. The dear innocent, unaffright- 
ed, smiled in the face of the Crouching Wolf, and it seemed as 
if the cheerful purity of her look stayed his vengeful arm. He 
paused, until a scream from the mother aroused the terror of her 
first-born. She shrunk back from the relentless savage, while 
her mother was kept, like myself, at bay, and while her sweet red 
lip, chiselled like her mother's, was quivering with dismay, she 
said in childish simplicity : 

* ' Naughty Indian ; if he hurts Sarah, ma will be angry, and 
punish him.' As she said this, she burst into tears — her last for 
ever ! 

' In an instant, the trenchant weapon of the infuriated Indian 
clove in sunder the head of my babe ; in the next, his excited 
comrades had murdered the wife of my bosom. I have an in- 
distinct and horrid remembrance of my burning store ; the red 
fiends yelling over the consuming roof and walls ; my escape to 
the forest ; the rest was but silence and oblivion. I was a mad- 



man 



' Ten months after, I found myself in New-Orleans. I had 
reached the city, no one knew how ; had been conveyed to a 
hospital, kindly treated, and discharged as cured ; but an out- 
cast and a beggar. Misfortunes seldom come singly. My father 
had died ; and as I had already received my share of his estate, 
the residue melted away among a host of brothers. My inherit- 
ance had been destroyed by the Indians. I was without a home 
or a friend. 

' How I subsisted, I scarcely know. At last, as I was one 
day walking on the levee, I saw a group collected around an In- 
dian, who was performing certain tricks from a box, with a rat- 
tlesnake. It was the Crouching Wolf. 

' ' The murderer of my wife and child !' I exclaimed, as I pen- } 
etrated through the ring, and with one huge blow felled the vile 
monster to the earth. I seized him by the throat ; I placed my 
knee upon his breast. In a few moments, he was a distorted and 
ghastly corpse beneath my feet. 

' My award of retribution was considered just, and no effort 
was made to arrest me. Availing myself of the box belonging to 
the Crouching Wolf, which I contended was mine as a debt, I 
soon learnt the mystery of his art, as it were by intuition. The 
upper drawer of the box contained the real rattlesnake ; the other, 



THE SNAKE EATER. 367 

merely the skin of one, which could be inflated by the breath, at 
will. The motion of the tongue, which was dried, and had 
wires within, was produced by loadstone ; the movement of the 
rattles by the same cause.* 

' Filled from the lungs, it could readily be taken into the 
mouth, and compressed into a very small compass, and while re- 
passing outward, inflated again. I bought a new snake from a 
museum, which I killed, and prepared according to the model 
before me. I could not endure the thought of even using the 
same instruments formerly employed by the destroyer of all 
that I most loved on earth, and I turned from his trickery with a 
feeling of almost positive loathing. A little practice made me 
an adept in the mystery of snake-eating, and 1 have since wan- 
dered in loneliness from town to town, attempting this curious 
enterprise. My pecuniary success has been suflicient for my 
comfort and convenience, and the danger of the feat is only in 
appearance. With a sHght exertion, I can resolve my face into 
the colors and contortions you witnessed this evening, and which 
heighten the interest of the spectacle. t But these things can 
only temporarily divert my thoughts, for I carry within my heart 
an aching fever, which no prosperity can allay or remove. The 
objects that have cheered me, can cheer me no more. I stand 
alone in this wilderness world ; a mourner and a pilgrim. My 
visions are of my v/ife and child ; my day dreams are of tliem ; 
but I must suffer as you see, until I meet them in that better 
country, where the sun descends not, and darkness is unknown ; 
where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
I can forget my child — for her existence seems to me like a 
misty trance — in the fond assurance that the sparkling dew-drop 
has exhaled to heaven ; but for the cherished rose that sustained 
it, I cease not to grieve. Alas, for the wife of my bosom ! Well 
can I say, with one who, perhaps, has loved and mourned like 
me : 

' Alas, for the clod that is resting now. 
On those shimberinc eyes — on that faded brow ! 
Wo for the cheek that has ceased to bloom, 
For the lips that are dumb in the noisome tomb : 

" The writer has now ia his possession a curiosity from the far West, in the 
shape of a lars;e prairie-beetle, which is composed, among other ingredients, of paper 
and wood. At the end of every claw and feeler, where they are attached to the 
body, are small bits of lead, impregnated with loadstone. This lifeless imitation 
performs all the movements of the actual beetle ; moves, and extends its limbs, pre- 
cisely like nature. It would puzzle the profoundest entomologist, on a common 
examination, ' to wotte whetlier that it livedde or was dede.' 

t This ' power of face' is not unusual among the dramatic fraternity. The cel- 
ebrated tragedian. Booth, can easily flush his face with the deepest suffusion of 
guilt or anger, and at the next moment cause it to bear the livid hue of death. 
This power often adds a tremendous effect to his personations. 



PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

Their melody brokeo, their fragrance gone — 
Their aspect cold as the Parian stone : 
Alas ! for the hopes that with thee have died^ 
Oh, loved one! would I were by thy side! 

' Yet the ' ioy of grief it is mine to bear: 
I hear thy voice in the twilight air ; 
Thy smile of sweetness untold I see, 
When the visions of evening are borne to me ; 
Thy kiss on my dreaming lip is warm, 
My arm embraceth thy yielding form : 
Then I wake in a world that is sad and drear, 
To feel in my bosom — thou art not here!" 



The morning had already began to fire the eastern horizon, 
beyond the distant wilderness, and to sparkle on the river, when 
I parted with the Snake Eater, and pursued my journey. On 
my return from the great metropolis of the Mississippi, I found 
that he had died, and gone to rejoin the lost treasures of his af- 
fection, in a clime where Sorrow has no residence, and where 
neither reptile nor poison can enter. 



DRAMATIC ALTERATIONS. 359 



DRAMATIC ALTERATIONS. 

' Tempora mutanUir, et nos mutamur in illis,^ is a saw of all 
earthly saws the tritest, yet it strikes pat upon the Drama. How 
has that ' department of the fine arts' varied and turned, like an 
anxious politician, until you can discern neither the ancient co- 
herence of its comely parts, nor its present estate ! Divine Shaks- 
peare ! couldst thou now revisit the glimpses of the moon, how 
would thy fine taste be outraged, and thy noble spirit grieved, 
by the perceiving flashes of inspiration, which centuries agone 
issued from thy luminous mind, now dimmed by modern play- 
wrights, and diluted into weak flickerings of sentiment ! How 
would it vex thy poor ghost ! Verily, the dramatic abominations 
of the day might create a soul of anger under the ribs of Death. 

Take, for example, the play of Richard III. When the bard 
of Avon made that ' pityful tragedie,' he adhered religiously to 
historical facts. The language of all the interlocutors was char- 
acteristic and consistent. Look at that tragedy now-a-days. 
Speeches ' like vermin on the lion's crest,' have been introduced 
as clap-traps, which show a foolish ambition in the fool that made 
and the zanies who use them ; history is distorted — the poet is 
mangled. 

The task would be quite too tedious to point out all the errors 
which the march of histrionic improvement has engrafted like 
cankerous buds upon one of the noblest intellectual trees of 
Shakspeare's rearing. In many instances the subordinates of the 
bloody play are omitted altogether ; and, as in the case of Tyr- 
rell and the young princes, the mere instigators of the murder 
are made actors in it. Most people, listening to the present per- 
formance of Richard III., would be led to wfc)-, at least, from 
the modernized text, that Tyrrell himself was the person who in 
the night-time flung the princely corpses down the Thames. We 
miss the passage where the sanguinary and ambitious baronet so- 
liloquizes respecting ' Dighton and Forest whom he did suborn,' 
to do the deed, and who it is conclusively known, were its dia- 
bolical perpetrators. That the young nephews were thrown into 
the river, is a very general though erroneous impression. His- 
tory, as we shall see, buries them in the tower. 

With perhaps the majority of play-goers, the Drama usurps 
the province, and supplies the teachings of history. It embalms, 
for posterity, the floating facts of the olden time ; and those 
heroes have a small chance for posthumous fame who do not exe- 



360 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

cute some act in their lives that is pecuUarly stage-effectual, and 
may be in some way perpetuated by plays. Thus the great 
Winkelreid of Switzerland, in contrast with William Tell, is 
comparatively unknown. How important is it then in all dram- 
atic efforts, such as those of the immortal Shakspeare, that the 
truths of history should never be stretched nor polluted ' 

There is an eloquent passage in Richard III. ; the soliloquy 
of the monarch, on the evening before the battle of Bosworth 
Field. Its intrinsic beauty makes it acceptable any where, but 
its utterance by Richard, under the circumstances, is rather out 
of place. It was originally a part of a chorus, with which many 
of the prominent acts of Shakspeare's plays were at first intro- 
duced, in imitation of the Greek tragedies. The speech of King 
Henry, also, on receiving news of his son's death, does not be- 
long at all to Richard. It is from one of the Henrys. 

How many play-goers have shouted and clapped their hands, 
pitlings, boxites, and all, when the crook-backed tyrant, on hear- 
ing of the capture of his enemy, exclaims : 

' Off with his head ! So much for Buckingham !' 

and what hearer of taste has not deemed the expression incon- 
gruous and abrupt ? It is enough to say that it is none of Shaks- 
peare's. The self-approving Mr. Tate, who introduced it, is the 
putative father of the barbarism. So also the dying speech of 
Gloster, ' Perdition catch thy soul,' etc., is an addition by some 
other mind, and though smooth and forcible, is not like Shaks- 
peare. 

Perhaps many of the readers of the Knickerbocker are un- 
acquainted with the contemporaneous history of the bloody Glos- 
ter, and therefore they cannot object to hearing him spoken of 
by an ancient and most veritable chronicler, Avho lived not long 
after the tyrant's time. Rare and curious indeed is that black- 
letter tome, ' Y* Cronikels of lohn Stovve,' whercfrom the follow- 
ing quaint but right credible historic hath been taken. 

'Om v" 4//t of lull/, Richard iij. hee came to the Tower by 
water with his wiffe, and made 14 knightes of y* bath.' During 
that moneth he had numerous victims arrested as rebels, among 
whom was one Jo/m Smith (the name was extant even then) ; 
and all of whom he charged with a design to fire the city of Lon- 
don, so that while it was burning they might rescue Prince Ed- 
ward and his brother the Duke of York, out of the tower: 

•Now,' says the honest Stovve, 'there fel myscheeves thick; and as the 
thing euil gotten, is neuer wel kepit, thorough all Richard's tyme neuc 
ceased there cruell deths and slawters till his own destruction ended thein. 



DRAMATIC ALTERATIONS. 361 

But as he finished his time with the best deth and the most righteous, that 
is to wit with his owne, so he began with the most pityous and wicked—*! 
meene the lumentible murther of his innocent nevues, the young king and 
his tender brother, whose death and finall infortune hath natheless comen 
so far in question that some did remain in dovt whether they were destroyed 
in his daies or no. But I shall rehearse you the dolorous death of these 
babes, not after every way that I have heard, but by such men and by such 
means as methinketh it were hard but it should be true.' 

Richard knew that while his nephews hved, he could have no 
right to the realm, and that therefore their death must ensue. 
Shakspeare has nobly expressed this in Gloster's famous solilo- 
quy. The manner in which he effected this, is succinctly re- 
corded by Stowe. He tried at first, through his special and 
trustworthy servant, John Greene, to prevail on Sir Robert Brak- 
enbry, constable of the Tower, to attempt the murder, which that 
functionary flatly declined. Greene returned with his answer to 
Richard, who was then at Warwick : 

• Secretly displeased, Richard said, on the same night to his secret 
page, ' Ah, whom shall a man trust ? Those that I have broughten up my- 
self, those that I had weened would most surely serve me, even these fail 
me, and at my commandment would doe nothing for me.' ' Sir, (quoth the 
page,) there lieth one on your pallet without, that I dare well say to do 
your grace's pleasure the thing were right hard that he would refuse,' mean- 
ing by this Sir James Tyrrell, which was a man of right goodly personage ; 
(modern playwrights make him a ruffian) and for nature's gifts worthie to 
haue serued a much better prince, if he had served God, and by gi-ace ob- 
tained so much truth and good will, as he had strength and wit. This man 
had an high heart, and sore longed upward, not rising yet so fast as he had 
hoped, being hindered and kept under by y^ meanes of Sir Richard Rat- 
cliffe and Sir William Catesby, which longed for ne moe partners of the 
prince's favor. Richard tooke this time to put him foreward, and by such 
wise to doo him good, that ail the enemies he had except the diuel, could 
never had done him so much. 

' Upon hearing his page's wordes, Kynge Richard arose, (for in this com- 
munication he had been sitting at the draught — convenient carpet for such 
a council.) and came out into a {)allet chamber, in which he found Sir 
lames and Sh- Thomas Tirels, of persons like and brethren of bloud, but 
nothing of kin in conditions. Then said y' Kynge merrily vnto them : 
' What, Sirs, are ye in bedde so soone V and calling Sir James, brake se- 
cretly to him his minde in this mischievous matter, in which he found him 
nothing straunge. Wherefore on the morrow he sent him to Brakenbry, 
with a letter by which he was commanded to deliver to Sir James all the 
keyes of the tower for one night, to the end he might there accomplish the 
king's pleasure in such things as he had given him commandment. After 
the which letter deiiuered and keyes receiued, Sir lames appointed the next 
night ensuing for to destroie them, deuising before and preparing y^ meanes. 
When the eldest of the young princes was told that his Vncle would be 
kynge, he was sore abashed, and sighed and said, 'Alas, I would my Vncle 
would let me haue my lifte yet, though I should leve my Kyngedomme.' 
Thenne he that tolde him y= tale, used him with good words, and put him 
in y« best comfort he could. But forthwith was the prince and his brother 
both shut vp and all other remoued from them, onely one called Black 



362 PEOSE MISCELLANIES. 

Wille, or William Slaughter except, sette to serue them, and see all sure. 
After which time y" prince iieuer tyde his pointes nor aught roughte of 
himself, but with y babe his brother, lingred in thought and great heaui- 
pesse, till his traitrous death deliuered him of that wretchedness, for Sir 
lames Tirell deuised that they should be murdered in their beds. To y* 
execution whereof he appointed Miles Forest, one of the four that kept 
them ; a fellow fleshed in murther aforetime. To him he ioyned one loh. 
Dighton, his ovvne horse-keeper; a bigge, broade, square, stronge knaue. 
' Then all other being remoued from them, this Miles Forrest and lohn 
Dighton about midnighle (y svveete children lyeing in their beddes) came 
into y^ chamber and sodainely lapped them up among y^ clothes, and so be- 
wrapped them and enstrangled them, keeping down y" feather bed and pil- 
lowes harde unto their mouthes, that within a while, smothered and 
stifled, their sweete breaths failing, they gaue to God their innocent souls 
into the ioyes of Heauen, leauing to the tormentors their bodies dead in y* 
bedde. Which after that the wretches perceiued, the first by the struggling 
with y' paines of death and after long lying still to be throughly dead, they 
laid their bodies naked out upon the bed and fetched Sir lames to see them, 
which vpon the sight of them caused these murtherers to bury them at the 
staircsfoot, meeidy dee})e in i/e groundc vnder a great hepc of stones.^ 

When Tyrrell conveyed the news to Richard at Warwick, he 
was overjoyed at the success of his dreadful and cruel plot. 
Several chroniclers, Master Moore, Stowe, Howes, etc., assert the 
tradition that Tyrrell was knighted on the spot. But the con- 
summate hypocrite, Richard, affected to be both chagrined and 
indignant that the bodies were buried in so vile a corner, because 
' they were kynge's sonnes,' and ought to have been interred in 
a better tomb. It was said that the bodies were afterward re- 
moved by Brakenbry, but where, he never condescended to tell. 
It is not impossible that the skeletons of those unfortunate princes 
passed by discovery and reversion, into the hands of some an- 
cient doctor or surgeon ! Who can tell ? Hamlet speculated 
at a wilder rate than this, and yet with perfect plausibility. He 
proved by respectable ratiocination, that 

'Imperious Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.' 

Tyrrell was afterward imprisoned in the Tower for treason against 
King Henry the VII. There, both himself and Dighton were 
examined, and confessed the murder of the princes as above 
written ; but as touching the places whither the ' fair corpses' 
were removed, they could impart no information. 

A more diabolical event, if we except the sad story of the 
Cenci, can scarcely be found in history. It seems to have moved 
the tender heart and aroused the warmest sympathies of the 
worthy Stowe, who thus * entreateth' the subject : 

• In this wise, as I haue learned of them that much knew and little cause 
had to lye, were these two princes, these innocent, tender children, borne 



DRAMATIC ALiTEKATIOXS. 363 

of most royal bloude, brought up in grete wealth, likely long to Hue, rule 
and rayue in y*^ relme, l)y traitrous tyranny depriued of their estate, shortly 
shut vp in prisonn. priuiiy slaine and murthered — their dainty bodies caste 
God he wots where, by the cruel! ambition of their Vnnatural V^acle and 
his dispiteous toiiuentors. Which things on euery part well pondred, God 
neuer gaue this Avorld a notabler example neyther in what mischief work- 
eth the enterprise of an hie heart, or finally what end ensueth such dispite- 
ous cruelty. For to begin with the ministres, Miles Forest at Saint Mar- 
tins rotted peacemeal away, Dightou indeed yet walkelk y^ earth (he was a 
contemporary of Stowe) in good possibility to be hanged ere he die. But 
Sir lames Tyrel dyed at y= Towre hill, beheaded for treason; and kynge 
Richard himself was slaine in y- the fielde,* hacked and heuxd of his ene- 
mies hands ; carried on horse-back, dead ; his hair in despight tome and 
tugged like to a Carre Dogg : and the mischefe that he lookc ivas within less 
L'lan, THREic yearcs of y« mischsves that he did ; and yet all the mean time 
spent in much paine and trouble outwarde, much feare, anguish, and sor- 
row within. For 1 haue heard by credible report of such as were secrett 
with his chamberlaines, that after his abominable deed done, he neuer had 
quiet in his mynde ; he neuer bedeemed himself sure : wheueuer he went 
abroad his eien whirled about, his body privily fenced, his hand euer vpon 
his dagger — his countenance and manner like one alwaies ready to strike 
again ; he took ill rest a-nights ; lay long waking and musing, sore wearied 
with care and watch ; rather slumbered than slept, troubled with fearful 
dreams : sometimes sodainely started up and leapt out of his bedde, to runne 
about y chamber, so was his restless heart continually tossed and tumbled 
with the hideous impression and awful remembrance of his abominable 
deede.' 

We marvel whether a better descrijjtion of what might not in- 
aptly be termed an earthly hell, can be found in all history, than 
the foregoing portrait of Richard, during those three memorable 
years in which his plans of insatiate ambition were working to 
their fulfilment. In his immortal play, Shakspeare has caught 
the very aspect of Gloster's form, and exhibited the concrete es- 
sence of his foul spirit. Tyranny must always be miserable to 
its dispenser ; and a crown got and maintained by blood, sits like 
corroding iron, not on the brow alone, but on the heavy heart of 
the usurper. Such were the feelings of Richard at Warwick, 
and of Tiberias at Capreas ; and such will ever be the fate of 
those who rest wrongfully in their regal seats, and abuse their 
ill-gotten prerogatives. Happily, in modern times, litde despot- 
ism exists in kingly dominions. The people hold in their hands 
the balance of power, and nionarchs themselves are accountable 
to their subjects. 

• 'Afteh ye battel of Bosworth Field,' says our worthy historian, ' yo dead corps 
cf Richard was as shamefully carried to ye towne of Leister, as hee gorgeously the 
the day before with pomp departed out of y<^ same towne; for his body was naked 
to ye skinne, not so much as one clout about him, and he was trussed up on horse- 
back behind a pursuivant at armes like a do?qe or caffe, ye head and armes hang- 
ing on one side of yo horse, and ye lesjjis vpon the other; and all sprinkeled with 
myre and blond, -was brought to y" Gray-Friers Chmche, within ye towne, and 
there homfly buried, when he had rainrd three yeeres, two nooneths, and one day.' 



364 PROSE MISCELLANIES 



MUSICAL INFELICITIES. 

I WAS much pleased by the perusal oi'* the lament of one Old- 
school, in a recent number of the Knickerbocker wherein he 
discoursed with true feeling and discretion upon the theme of 
Music ' under the Reformation.' True it is, that we receive no 
longer that auricular gratification from sweet and simple sounds, 
once commended so delectably to our senses. The reason is 
obvious. There is a mania among our modern singers for mere 
execution, which drives harmony and melody at once into the 
shade. I shall treat of this, in connexion with others, as among 
the chiefest of my infelicities. 

Naturally, I have tender ears. As recipients of the different 
modulations of sound, they are peculiarly subtile. My nervous 
organization is delicate ; and those airs that melted into my soul, 
and kindled up my heart in my better days, still charm those re- 
cesses of thought and feeling with an influence truly magical. 
The enchantment of association twines itself among the notes, 
and awakens all the dreams of the past, until the tear is on my 
eyelid, and the throb of remembered delight trembling in my 
bosom like a reed shaken by the wind. I return with the elastic 
and visionary tread of memory, into that Happy Valley of Youth, 
where I spent the sunny morning of my days. I see the streams 
sparkling blue and bright along the meadows ; the bird chants 
in the wild wood ; the flocks are white on the green hill-side ; 
the herds are cropping the herbage in shady places, and lashing 
the summer flies, murmuring as they sting ; and, above all, 
swells the pomp of the unsearchable sky, and ' gorgeous com- 
panies of clouds.' These, like the pictures of a panorama, ever 
arise to my mental vision at the sound of music, such as I heard 
in other times. Mornings, and sunsets, and landscapes that 
were dear to me of old, throng around me. I give up the pres- 
ent, and live in the past. 

But of late these emotions are strangers to my breast, and the 
pictures have faded from my mind. I hear singers announce 
and execute songs called by the same names as those I used to 
hear ; but how different their sound ! New shakes, quavers, and 
variations, murder their sweetness at the very portals of my ear, 
and put all their associations to flight. Affectation, too, that 
bane of good singing, has come so much in fashion, that it is 
quhe impossible to hear a simple song without the modern emen- 
dations. If yoii do, it will be from pome fresh-hearted creature, 



MUSICAL INFELICITIES. 365 

with affections as pure as the rose on her cheek, who spends a 
few winter weeks among friends or relations in the city. Theu, 
to a guileless mind, her attractions in music are transcendent, 
and she shows among the starched, affected demoiselles of fash- 
ion, ' like to a snowy dove trooping with crows.' I have a 

good friend, Kate J , who now and then comes to the city ; 

and I hail her arrival as a blessing. Siie sings with simplicity, 
hut with correctness and good taste. She feels what she sings ; 
and does not, parrot-like, repeat the sonorous ejaculations and 
half-musical intonations, expressive of spurious sorrow or delight, 
taught by some mortally affected master. I sit by her piano, and 
in a moment my spirit is wandering in the dominions of recollec- 
tion, and finds the things of the present to be but as entities of 
the twilight, flitting unobservedly around. 

I have said that ajfectation is now-a-days the bane of social 
music. And so it is. Your city-bred Miss, following the teach- 
ings of her instructor, does not permit her friends to hear, or 
rather to understand more than half the words in a song. Some 
of them are butchered on her lips ; som.e of them come forth 
clipped of their proportions in such wise that you know them not ; 
others are murdered in her thorax. This is not her fault, for 
she learns and sings ' according to the mode ;' therefore her ten- 
derness is affctuoso, and her feeling second-hand. If she visit the 
Theatre, she will hear ladies and gentlemen applauded to the 
echo, who if they read a song with the pronunciation with which 
they sung it, would be hissed out of sight in a moment. For 
example, I have heard a fashionable female vocalist, whose name 
I ^eave unmentioned, sing Biack-Eyed Susan with a pronuncia- 
tion exactly as expressed in the stanza below : 

' Yole-d' in the Dunes tha' vlit was moored — 
Tha' sydrimuies wa-ivin<; to tha' woind, 
Wen black- guard Zeuzin kirn on bo-awd : 
Say luar shall E ine tr-r-rew lev foind ? 
Tell me, e-ye jovial Zoilars, tell me e-tr-r-e\v — 
Dof" s e'my zweet William zale am'eng e-yer cr-rew V 

Now why is it that such errors are tolerated ? and that they are 
imitated?- Tlie musical old gentleman in Salmagundi, who 
worked several summers in producing a change in the chimes of 
Trinity church bells, so that instead of going dl do ding dong, 
they might go d'mg dong do dl, was far better employed than the 
masters or the vocalists who inculcate affectation. Let us have 
sincerity in music. It is, of all things, the sweetest and most ac- 
ceptable. Let the ear have its honestly-desired fruition of har- 
mony, and not be mocked with tiie shadow of music and feeling, 
when the substance is wanting:. 



366 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



THE DUELIST. 



'Thou takest a life away — 



A holy, human life — the life God gave!' 

Mizsian's 'Fazio.' 

A FEW months ago, in company with a proiessional friend, I. 
visited a Lunatic Asylum, in the neighborhood of one of our 
most populous cities. It was a mild autumn day ; of that rich 
and breathing kind, which wears less of earth than heaven ; when 
the garniture of the year displays a loveliness like the cheek of 
Beauty, tinted with the hectic of coming dissolution, which seems 
more a herald of life and promise, than of death or decay. The 
institution I have mentioned, stood upon an eminence, surround- 
ed by groves, waving like a mass of rainbows in the air. The 
scene from its site was beautiful in the extreme. Blue moun- 
tains melted afar into the sky ; fair vales and bright rivers smiled 
and rolled between ; the city was near at hand, with its towers 
and battlements, ' and banners floating in the sunny air ;' all was 
delightful, all serene. My spirit received into its inmost depths 
the harmonizing influences of the view ; and I could not help 
contrasting the peaceful calmness that lay like a charm upon the 
landscape around, with the murmurs of phrensy which reached my 
ear, as I stood with my friend at the great door of the asylum, 
waiting, for a moment, to enjoy the prospect, before we entered. 
Voices were heard, in various tone and measure, singing, talking, 
and howling, in mingled confusion. It was as if Limbo had 
been dispeopled, and we were listening to the wailings of its mis- 
erable inhabitants. 

As we entered, I was struck with the regularity and order 
which every where prevailed in the appearance of the mansion. 
It seemed a place where Reason, could it be permitted to enjoy 
so sweet a retreat alone, might wrap itself in the mantle of undis- 
turbed reflection ; where Love might nestle and be delighted ; 
and from whence the baneful passions of our nature might be ut- 
terly banished. 

As we strayed along the solemn corridors, catching ever and 
anon rich vievvs of the distant sceneiy from the windows and em- 
brasures, I could not but admire the generosity which had 
planned such a Refuge. It had been very successful. The ex- 
ertions of its officers and various superintendents had been so 
well rewarded, as to give pleasure to every philanthropist in the 
large community of liberal hearts lo whom their yearly reports 



THE DUELIST. 867 

were submitted. Blessed, surely, of Heaven, will those be, who 
thus bind up the weary bosoms that have been pierced by the 
bitter shafts of affliction ; who re-unite the disjointed links of 
memory and reason, and cause the streams of thought to flow 
with the renewal of a fresh and healthy impulse, through the 
soul ! 

We entered many of the apartments. Several contained fe- 
males, sitting in gentle abstraction, humming some half forgotten 
song, and repeating in audible cadence the disordered images 
that rose to the mind, like the changeful hues of a kaleidoscope, 
in a thousand beautiful but fantastic and momentary forms. 

At the extremity of a wide gallery, extending the entire length 
of the mansion, were two rooms, larger than any on the same 
floor, and, when the doors were shut, with no communication 
whatever, even in sight, between them. One was occupied by a 
female, the other by a young gentleman who scarcely seemed 

' Less tlian Archangel ruined, or the excess 
Of glory obscured.' 

He was tall, and of an erect, manly form. He was pacing his 
apartment, and separated from the observer, as his door opened, 
by a close iron palisade which extended into the room about a 
foot from the door. On one ankle was a chain which clanKed 
incessantly, as he strode to and fro through the apartment, like a 
lion in his cage. He scarcely deigned a look at us, but wander- 
ed on, turning at regular intervals, and sometimes pausing for a 
moment, with flushed features, to place his hand on his forehead, 
as if to repress a tide of swelling thoughts, which seemed ready 
to burst the boundary of the brain. His forehead was wide, but 
not high. Around it the dark hair hung in masses of gloomy 
shadow, or drooped in the lank dampness of perspiration. There 
was an expression of stern and implacable bitterness about the 
lip ; but it was in the eye, that the direful meanings of phrensy 
were the most convincingly exhibited. The pupils dilated with 
a fearful expression, while, now and then, he would lengthen and 
retard his pace, as if measuring a space of ground accurately 
with his ti-ead. Then he would stand sidewise, in a soldier's at- 
titude, and with his eye fixed closely on some distant object, lift 
his arm to the level of his breast, reach it strongly out from his 
side, his shifting eye quickly following the curl of his fore-finger, 
as if taking aim for a pistol shot. In this position he would re- 
main for nearly a minute, at the end of which his eye would 
close as if from horror ; a shuddering ran through his limbs, and 
his arm dropped nervelessly by his side. Then he would curse, 



36S PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

and weep such tears ! Tliey seemed wrung like life-blood from 
the very fountain of his heart. 

' Poor fellow !' said my comrade : ' three years ago, he was 
one of the most attractive and promising youths I ever knew^. 
He was the best scholar in his class at college, for learning 
seemed to come to him without an effort. Energetic and ambi- 
tious, but with most unbridled passions, he allowed nothing to 
stand in the way of his desires. He was beloved by some for his 
freedom of spirit, but condemned by the judicious for the reck- 
lessness of his aims. An unfortunate affair has brouoht him 
hither ; and i, used as I am to histories of crime and sorrow, 
have never been able to retain a sufficient mastery of my feel- 
ings, to relate his story as I know it, even to the most intimate 
friend. When he first reached the asylum, he was a raving 
maniac. Several months passed by, and his disorder grew more 
temperate and mild. There were occasions w^hen he would not 
for days utter an irrational word. He desired that writing ma- 
terials should be allowed him, and he wrote many sheets closely 
full. These he tied together in the form of a book, with fanciful 
strings of blue and red silk, and used almost daily to read over, 
marking out, with apparent care, every inelegant or irrelevant 
word. Earnest hopes were entertained of his recovery, at no 
distant period, when the admission of a lunatic lady into the op- 
posite apartment, and of whom he caught a glimpse through his 
open door as she entered, drove him at once into a settled deli- 
rium. In this state he has continued ever since. Increasing 

o 

weakness now marks his disorder ; his appetite has declined ; 
fitful ravings disturb his repose ; no drowsy potion can calm his 
mind ; and he sometimes, especially in summer nights, howls 
away the doleful watches, in all the agony of a doomed spirit. A 
few months, I fear, will seal his destiny.' 

The conversation of my friend seemed to have no effect upon 
the prisoner before us. He appeared wrapt up in the thick dark- 
ness of his own imaginations, and gave none but vague tokens 
that he recognised our presence. Indeed, until then, he had 
scarcely glanced in that direction. My friend wished to try the 
effect of a new face upon him, (as he had seen none but himself 
and a domestic attendant for several months, strict seclusion 
having been advised). Accordingly, he retired into the hall, and 
with his extended cane, (himself unseen,) rapped against the 
threshold, the usual salute. 

The maniac turned his face toward me, and started back with 
wild surprise. ' Why, sir,' said he, ' have you not been to see 
me before ? I have been imprisoned in this cell, by order of 



THE DUELIST. 369 

Cleostratus, because I refused to explain his epicycles before the 

faculty at college. He wrote a note to them ; Socratfes 

signed it, Plato stuck his sign-manual on it, and I was expelled ! 
Sir,' he continued, ' they have got Cleopatra in the other room ; 
and she is trying to kill me ! Twenty times in a night, with the 
fire of a demon in her eye, and the poisonous blood coursing 
over her bosom, does she open that door where you stand, and 
let loose from a box which she got of Pandora, a swarm of asps 
and scorpions on my floor. Y es ; you know it, for at this mo- 
ment you are scowling upon me, as if you were leagued with her ! 
Fiend ! What have I done to her, or you ? Where is my friend ? 
I\Iy friend — ha! ha ! ha ! — ?«?/ friend?' 

I trembled at his manner and his words. He continued to go 
on, in language similar to that I have quoted, uttered without 
much connection or relevancy, in a voice hollow and sepulchral. 
The play of his features was agonizing to behold. What can be 
more terrible than a mind in ruins, ' like sweet bells jangled out 
of tune ?' The stare of natural idiotcy is not so painful to re- 
ceive, because we know, as we look on the sufferer, that he has 
never fallen from a high estate ; but when we meet the glances 
of a disturbed and restless eye, flashing with phrensy, and shifting 
every way, as if tossed about by the boiling fervors of a ' heat- 
oppressed brain ;' when we remember that once, perhaps but 
lately, it shone with the scintillations of wit and reason ; then it is, 
that we can faintly apprehend the inherent greatness, and delicate 
dependencies of the immortal mind. It is fearful to see the light 
of God extinguished in the soul ; to behold it reduced to a chaos : 
to note the obscuration of a spark whose divine lustre, next to 
the vast spheres of heaven, affords the most convincing proof of 
an ever-watchful and omnipotent intelligence ; and assures us 
that man is indeed ' but little lower than the angels.' 

I was so completely absorbed in contemplating the features and 
movements of the maniac before me, that I felt as if spell-bound 
in a dream. Whether an influence, akin to sympathy of thought 
or feeling, is conveyed by a lunatic to his observer, I know not ; 
but certain it was, that every glance, shot from the penetrative eye 
of the being before me, awakened a new interest in his behalf. 
He ceased speaking, and walked on, turning with heavy steps, 
and humming occasionally the faint notes of disremembered mu- 
sic, that came to his mind, half cheerful, half sad ; the wrecks, 
perchance, of sounds that had melted and won his heart in better 
years. My companion still continued io stand aloof, anxious to 
know what the consequences of my interview might be^ Ab- 
straction seemed to be the maniac's chief characteristic. Bitter 

24 



370 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

memories, it was evident, were at work in his mind. At last he 
stopped suddenly, and said in a deep, sober tone : 

' Do you know that my chain reaches to that corner, and that 
desk ? It does, upon my honor. Yes, upon my honor. Men 
fight for honor, they die for honor, they plunge themselves into 
rivers of fire and blood — for honor! Oh God! I have — I 
have!' 

Words cannot convey the desperation of his language, or the 
horror that sate upon his countenance, as he gave it breath. It 
was like the features of the thunder-scarred and dark-browed spirit, 
in Milton, whose cheek, blanched by tempests of dire hail from 
the treasuries of the Almighty, was the throne of care. 

Suiting his action to his word, the prisoner approached the 
desk, and took from it the identical manuscript which my friend 
had described. ' I will give this,' said he, ' to you. It is a deed 
of all my property. I bequeath it for your benefit. Now I look 
at you again, you seem a friend.' Here, without an efibrt, or 
apparent emotion, the large tears came again to his eye. He at- 
tempted to reach the manuscript to me, but could not. Instantly 
he approached the window, and grasped one of the wooden bars 
which crossed it. With desperate energy, he drew it from the 
casement, as easily as Samson disparted the withes wherewith 
he was bound. Tying the colored strings to the bar, he handed 
the book to me, through the grating which separated us from each 
other. I took it, and thanked him for his pains. He made me 
no answer, but stood like an image of stone. He seemed to have 
dispossessed himself of a burden, and disposed for sleep. He 
approached his pallet in the corner, and sank so quickly into 
slumber, that it seemed like the mimic sleep of an actor, in Rich- 
ard the Third, when the tyrant sees the ghost of the Plantagenets, 
' Clarence and the rest,' rising around him. His breathing was 
heavy and slow ; large drops of sweat stood on his temples ; and 
an occasional groan, as if sounding from the heart, moaned 
through his lips. 

Now,' said my companion, ' is the time to go. Step lightly, 
for the least sound will waken him at this hour.' 

As we turned from his apartment, my friend moved a little 
slide before a pane of glass in the door of the opposite room, and 
bade me look in. A lady was sitting at the window, gazing out- 
ward, with a vacant eye, and kissing her hand at the airy nothings 
of her mind. The noise of the sliding panel attracted her no- 
tice. She glanced toward the door. The moment my face was 
recognised, she sprang toward me. ' Oh, Henry,' she said, 'are 
you come ? How long I have waited for you ! No, no,' she 



THE DUELIST. 371 

added, pushing her fair hair wildly back from her brow, ' you 
are not Henry — no ; if you were, you would speak to me !' 

jf could not speak to her. I was overpowered, bewildered. 
She was a beautiful being, seemingly not twenty years of age. 
The ravages of sorrow had thinned her features, and saddened 
her brow ; but her lips were still feverishly full and red ; her blue 
eye, still bright ; the hues of fading loveliness, like the rejected 
tints of a damask rose, still lingered in her cheek ; and her voice.! 
oh, how sweet and musical, did its gentle accents fall upon my 
ear ! Every word bespoke the stainless purity of the spirit that 
fate had steeped in ruin. 

I could not bear the sight, and a world could not then have 
compelled me to the utterance of a word. I closed the panel, 
with a distressful feeling ; and taking the arm of my friend, re- 
plied to his attentive offers, that I would see no more. 

When I returned to my lodgings in the city, I opened the 
maniac's pages. I have deemed them of interest, and I now give 
them to the reader, word for word — a melancholy record of pas- 
sion and crime. 

' I AM a man, smitten of God. I seize my pen with a tremb- 
ling hand, to record some of the events in a life that has not been 
long, but is yet wearing swiftly to its close. A world of sable 
images is arrayed before the prospect of my soul. I lift the dis- 
mal curtain of fate from the gloom of departed years, and dis- 
cern, over its scenes of horror, the sun of recollection ; bloody 
and wan, like that pale sphere which hung above Jerusalem, 
when the veil of the temple was rent in sunder ; when they who 
slept in their graves arose, called from their cerements by the 
moaning of thunders and earthquakes on a thousand hills. The 
beams of innocence have vanished for ever from my mind ; the 
roses that opened once around my pathway, are changed for the 
night-shade and the ivy ; my feet have stumbled upon the dark 
mountains of error ; and for the dews of pleasure, or the blooms 
of hope, I inherit the vulture of regret. Remorse and pain are 
knawing at my heart ; and like the fabled scorpion in his enven- 
omed circle, I mingle at once the poison of the adder, with the 
torpor of the worm. 

' The misery of years may be compressed into one short page. 
I shall be brief. What I am now, I was not always. As I sit 
by my window, and look out from the bars that hedge me in, 
upon eardi and sky, basking in that sunlight which but faintly 
shadows the smile of the Creator, I bethink me of all the past. 
My soul swells with remembrance, my heart with emotion. It 



372 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

is the hour of sunset. The great orb rolls slowly down ; he dips 
behind the western mountains, and in gushes of solemn pomp, 
ethereal brightness flows over their blue outlines, along the land- 
scape. It is a Sabbath evening — the month is June : the distant 
bells of the city load the fragrant breeze w-ith volumes of tender 
melody. Around, are aroma, and peace, and music, and holi- 
ness — but not with me. 

' My testimony must be given. I hold my uncertain reason as 
a boon which a breath may dissolve ; and as its dawning day 
continues, I must inscribe my record, before the night shall come. 
Against myself, I am to place upon these pages a fearful witness. 
I shall write as one on whom the sleepless eye of God looks 
w^ith a discerning vision. I shall unveil my heart. I will bare 
to the day the corruption of its motives, and the deed of horror 
to which they have led ; the thoughts whereof have withered my 
form, and scathed my brain, like the blast of a samiel. I will 
call up from their dungeons, the wierd spectres of memory. I 
will lift the mirror of truth before me, and describe the hideous 
monster that I behold therein, though the appalling reflection 
should sere my eyeballs, and make me shudder through every 
nerve. 

' I have been a scholar and a student. I have gone through 
the studies and trials allotted to those who delve after knowledge. 
I have explored the treasures of orators, dramatists, annalists, and 
poets. I have bent over the breathing pages of Cicero, and 
Homer, and Virgil ; of jEschylus and Thucydides, Tacitus, and 
Livy. I have quaffed long and deep at the fountains of ancient 
lore ; but the only spring that ever cheered me has dried up, 
and left for my seeking lip the sand alone. 

' I have loved. There lies the secret of my torture and my 
doom. At the junior exhibition of my class, as I was speaking 
before a large and brilliant assembly in the University chapel, 1 
saw, for the first time, an object that riveted my gaze and secured 
my admiration, my affection. She was young, and oh, how su- 
premely lovely ! I paused with a sense of intoxicating transport. 
Her liquid blue eyes met mine ; her fine Grecian features seem- 
ed lit with an unearthly intelligence ; the blush of innocence was 
on her cheek. The periods of my salutatory dropped slowly 
from my lips ; I forgot my duties, my honors ; I was ' clothed 
upon with love !' 

' When the exercises of the day were over, I made enquiries 
after the fair being who had so moved me. She was a partial 
stranger in town, remaining at the dwelling of a relation. A year 
previous she had visited the city, and been addressed by a class- 



THE DUELIST. 373 

mate with whom my terms of friendship were strict and intimate. 
He had been accepted as her suitor, and the day of their uniop 
had ah-eady been appointed. 

' Fired with passion, I sought her acquaintance. I met her 
often ; and amidst the attractions of a society not deficient in fe- 
male lovehness, I found her ever the sole ascendant star. God! 
how I loved her ! I waited upon her footsteps, and bent to her 
beck, as one that obeys the bidding of a celestial spirit. Her 
smile was the joy of my heart ; her voice the richest music to 
my ear. But I wooed in vain. With a delicacy, pure as it was 
engaging, she repelled all my advances, and I could not but see 
that my friend, Henry Rivers, was the choice of her affection. 

' Rivers was indeed my friend. We had been all in all to 
each other. But causes must produce effects, and coldness soon 
sprang up between us. He loved May Morton with a perfect 
idolatry. I was the foul iconoclast, who destroyed both the wor- 
shipper and the image. Wo is me ! 

' My passion could not be concealed. The pent-up flame de- 
fied restraint. One balmy afternoon in spring, I sought the apart- 
ment of May Morton. 1 poured out my soul, in kisses and protes- 
tations, on the white, reluctant hand that thrilled in mine. I was 
answered in tones of melody, whose fatal sweetness haunts me 
still, that my suit was vain. Rivers Vv^as her betrothed — her 
heart and hand were his own. I heard no more. Pride spread 
its burning color over my cheek. I ceased to supplicate ; I 
bowed, and withdrew. Weeks passed over me, without a knowl- 
edge of existence. A malignant fever brought me to the margin 
of the grave ; and the delirium of passion and sickness was con- 
tinually upon me. 

' Months elapsed before I recovered. When I came forth 
again, it was only to hear of the approaching marriage of my 
rival. A few days were to witness its consummation. In all 
my sickness. Rivers, forgetting my offence, was my devoted at- 
tendant. He was generous and noble. No office was too ar- 
duous for his goodness ; and through the watches of many a 
weary night, he kept his vigil by my side. Alas ! how was he 
repaid ! 

'As the time drew nigh for the celebration of his nuptials, 
my vigor increased. I ate but httle, yet I seemed to subsist 
and thrive on thought. A vague idea of some desperate deed 
beset my soul. What it was destined to be, I knew not ; but I 
felt, inly, as if nerving myself for some dire resolve. 

' How little do we know of our own hearts ! During all this 
period, I could not recognise in myself any hatred to Rivers. I 



374 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

thought him the happiest of men ; I would have given worlds to 
have filled his place in the affections of May Morton ; and be- 
cause she did, I thought I too loved him. Fatal delusion ! 

' I received an invitation to be present at their nuptials. I 
went, but with a feeling such as I never before experienced. It 
was the elateness of a desperate mind — the elevation which pre- 
cedes despair. 

' It was a lovely evening. The guests were met, the feast was 
spread. I heard the voice of the priest; I saw the hands of the 
betrothed united in eternal fidelity. The room swam to my 
vision ; the smiles that met me were repaid by glances of vacancy 
or of fire ; and the wine-cup passed my lips untasted. 

* A dance ensued. The music breathed through the scented 
apartments, like a heavenly epithalamium. Graceful forms were 
moving in fairy circles ; the viol uttered its harmonies ; all was 
brightness ; all delight. 

' How it was, I know not, that I approached the happy pair as 
they stood at the head of a cotillon. ' Pleasant time, this, Mr. 
Rivers,' said I, with a bitter smile, and in a hollow voice ; ' very 
pleasant — don't you think so V 

' ' Indeed I do ; the happiest of my life. My sweet May be- 
side me, and my own ! It is like a dream.' 

' ' Very likely,' I replied. ' What a pity it is that so sweet a 
dream should not be enjoyed by somebody who deserved it.' 

' 'What do you mean, Sir?' said Rivers, the generous mean- 
ings of his eye changing to a look of stern inquiry. 

' 'I mean,' I responded, with the abruptness of instant false- 
hood, which could not be contradicted from the grave, ' that you 
told young Everts, of our class, that my Oration at the Junior 
Exhibition was written by you. He is dead now, and can not 
say to you, as I do, that you are both a liar and a coward. I 
speak it aloud ; I am heard by all around me ; and I leave you 
to demand of me that satisfaction, current among all honorable 
men, which you will not fail to receive.' 

' Rivers was thunder-struck. He gazed at me with a look of 
mingled pity and surprise. At last he said : 

' ' Charles, voio I know you. This is an angry, envious trick 
of yours, and 1 see the motive. But it shall not avail you. You 
shall be met, as you desire ; but not to-night. To night, at 
least,' he added, addressing his terrified bride, with looks of un- 
utterable tenderness, ' shall be devoted to rapture and to love. 
Sir, you will hear from me in the morning.' 

' "What were my feelings ! Like Ithuriel in Eden, I stood, 
hideous and single, in the midst of a scene of loveliness. From 



THE DUELIST. 375 

bitter envy and unrequited passion, I had wantonly falsified the 
truth, and poisoned the happiness of a lovely being, by embroil- 
ing in mortal combat the chosen companion of her bosom. 

' I know not how I reached home. I slept as on a bed of fire. 
In the morning I received a note from Rivers, which I accepted 
without delay. 

' That afternoon we met. The grey walls of the University, 
where we had spent so many happy hours, shone through the 
distant grove, as we measured our deadly paces. The word 
was waiting to be given ; the lengthened solemn tread was made. 
Rivers held his pistol as if willing to use it on an enemy, but not 
on a friend. I levelled my aim at his heart. I see him still as 
he stood before me then ; the sunshine playing on his chestnut 
locks and manly forehead ; the look of blended pity and con- 
sternation that his features wore. He stood with the sublimity 
of a good conscience beaming from his eye. As I stretched my 
mortal weapon toward his bosom, he shrank not. He seemed 
to feel the moral advantage that he possessed over me. A whirl 
of giddy thoughts rushed through my mind, but I had no time 
for reflection. Some fallen angel whispered vengeance in ray 
ear. What had I to avenge ? What, but an innocent and mu- 
tual love ? 

' I held my elevated pistol a shade higher. The word was 
spoken by the seconds ; I drew back my lock, and heard the 
click of Rivers' simultaneous with mine. I took deliberate aim ; 
the burning flash warmed over my fingers, the report rang 
through the grove. Rivers stepped toward me with extended 
hand ; his pistol exploded as it dropped from his nerveless grasp ; 
he brought his open palm convulsively to his breast ; he reeled ; 
he fell. 

' I rushed to my fallen friend. The crimson blood was gush- 
ing from his heart, over his bosom ; the leaden hue of death was 
beneath his closing eyes ; its pallor was on his cheek ; its foam 
on his lips. 

' 'Oh, May !' he uttered, with an agonizing groan ; and then, 
as if nerving himself to an act of dreadful energy, he raised him- 
self partially up, and reaching forth his hand, exclaimed: 'Charles, 
I forgive you! You have killed me without a cause; you will 
break the fondest heart that ever beat for man; but — / forsrive 
you I 

' The blood now gathered, clotty and smoking, on his purple 
lips ; the gurgling sound of dissolution was in his throat ; and in 
one short moment, his life-current staining the green sward where 
he fell, he was among the dead. 



376 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

' I TELL no more. Is it for me to describe the funeral ; the 
grief that brought the widowed and distant mother of a widowed 
bride to the grave ; the distress that made May Rivers a maniac ? 
Can I paint the burden of remorse which at last, and for a long, 
dark period, dethroned my reason? Shall I revert to that hour 
to-da}'', when, an inmate of this dreary place, I saw her whom I 
once loved, as never did a thing on earth, before me ; her fair 
locks and graceful vestments torn with the struggles of phrensy ; 
an occupant of the same mad mansion? No ; the picture is too 
dreadful, even for a mind that has conceived the deeds and suf- 
fered the horrors of mine. At uncertain moments, my brain 
seems reeling as if a weight of lead were pressed upon its cell ; 
ghastly forms rise up around me ; hands that would incarnadine 
the ocean, beckon to me from the dark walls of Evening, and 
funeral murmurs, like the ivul-wnllehs of the East, come booming 
from afar. Wo is me ! I am smitten of God !' 



Here the manuscript of the maniac ended. It was with a 
melancholy heart, a few months after its perusal, that I saw, on 
a second visit to the Asylum, in the green cemetery of the insti- 
tution, the graves of the duelist and his hapless victim. The 
verdant mantle of Spring decked the earth where they slept, with 
rich fertility. His monument was of dark, gloomy marble ; but 
the white, simple stone, which shone above the tomb of fair 
May Rivers, stood like an emblem of her stainless life and her 
glorified soul. She had gone from earth, like the breath of the 
Spring-time, or the bloom from its flowers. The memorial that 
rose above her slumbers was shaped like an urn. On one side, 
was sculptured ' May' — on the other, * Hope.' What fitter de- 
vice could have been made ? Let the shaft or the cenotaph be 
lifted for the miiid that has gone to its beatitude, not for the lost 
grace that is wasting, the lip that is dumb, or the brow that is 
dim ! In the pale dominions of the dead, * that have fallen 
asleep upon the bosom of the earth,' never again to rise on mortal 
vision, to whom should we build ? 

' To Beauty ? Ah, no ! She forgets 
The charms that she wielded before ; 

Nor knows the foul worm, that he frets 
The skin that but yesterday fools could adore, 
For the smoothness it held, or the tints which it wore.' 



MILITANT ARIAS. 377 



MILITANT ARIAS — BY AN AMATEUR. 

Nobody is cynic or green-goose enough to deny that the pres- 
ent is the age of improvement. Every thing seems to be going 
onward with a rapidity, the strides whereof may be hkened unto 
the tread of an army with banners. All kinds of systems, social, 
political, public and private, seem to be better fixed than they 
used to be. To account for these great emendations on any com- 
mon hypothesis, would be ridiculous. Hypotheses are remnants 
of antiquity ; and I believe the age can yet be found able to dis- 
pense with them altogether. The time is not distant, I fancy, 
when conclusions will be jumped at without argument, and when 
Truth herself (I believe I have hit the gender of that respect- 
able stranger) will come out of the well where her troglodyte 
limbs have so long been cooling, and lift her mirror on high 
to irradiate the benighted brains of every son and daughter of 
Adam. 

I say it is difficult to account for these grand emendations on 
any common cause ; but I have one to which I refer them uni- 
formly, and it is to my mind of a very satisfactory nature. Mod- 
ern philosophers have discovered that, in the matter of light, the 
extremities of comets have scattered new substances into our at- 
mosphere, and that when these eccentric characters are in peri- 
helio, their tails are peculiarly bright and flashy. Now, my im- 
pression is, that the light of these comets, thus generously dis- 
bursed from their hinder sides, in an intermittent diarrhoea of 
glory, is conveyed by some principal of induction to the mind 
of man ; that the subtile rays act specifically upon some cranio- 
logical bump of his head, inclining him to love music, poetry, 
politics, horse-stealing, or any thing of the sort, according to the 
character of the organ in which these rays may settle. To some, 
they convey high fiscal notions and a love of locomotion, as in 
the case of Mr. Nazro, the classical teacher, who has such rapid 
» habits and extensive relations, and who charges $100,000 per 
' year, for the finishing of a scholar in his Biblical Instruction. 
To my own mind, I am sensible that there has been conveyed a 
strong portion of light on the subject of musical adaptation, and 
my ears have been acted upon to a considerable extent by the 
same principle. I never witness any public amusement of late, 
that I do not begin to reflect on some way in which music might 
be made to help it on ; and being an ardent though blind admirer 



378 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

of European customs, I join in that sublime chase in this science, 
and in other matters of about the same importance, with which a 
large majority of my comet-stricken fellow-citizens seem interest- 
ed. But to my sul3Ject. 

I was lounging the other day, on one of the luxurious sofas 
of the Washington Divan, and sipping a cup of delicious coffee, 
and looking at the fine paintings and various periodicals hanging 
and lying around, when I took up that elegant paper. Bell's Life 
in London, and straightway fell into a train of deep reflection, as 
I sent my eye up and down its columns, upon the great preva- 
lence among the ge7itlemen of England, of those lofty and digni- 
fied amusements, so cheering to intelligent minds, which are yet 
almost unknown in this country. I worked myself by degrees 
into a paroxysm of high-bred indignation, that our imitative gen- 
try had copied so sparingly from these great transatlantic exam- 
ples, in pastimes so pleasing to humanity and healthful to the soul. 
I had touched the climax of my regret, when the following adver- 
tisement caught my gaze : 

♦Cocking. — A main of cocks will take place on Wednesday the 6th 
inst., at the Royal Cockpit, West Green, Tottenham, for <£b the battle and 
£bQ the odd, between the gentlemen of Middlesex and KetJt ; to fight in 
silver. Feeders, Gumm and Hawick. 

'Three whole days' play will be fought at Bristol on the 19tb inst., and 
the two following days, between the gentlemen of Gloucestershire and the 
gentlemen of Somersetshire, for c£lOthe battle, and dClOO the main. Feed- 
ers, GRA^T, for Somersetshire; Bumm, for Leicestershire.' . 

As I peered over this notice, a train of luminous thought, 
rapid as the scintillations of a meteor, burst upon my mind. 
Why, said I to myself, has not this accomplished sport of cock- 
fighting been more extensively introduced into this meridian ? 
and why should it not be done to music 'I- How few, alas ! how 
very few of the intelligent gentlemen of this country have ever 
taken an interest in these gladiatorial rencontres between exas- 
perated fowls ; or reflected upon the admirable manner in which 
their contests might be associated with instrumental sounds, and 
their jumps, pecks, and gaff-kicks, be timed with crotchet and 
quaver ! To the honor of a few remote Kentuckians, or Indiana 
Hoosheroons, this eminent sport has found a few advocates in 
those distant quarters of our republic. Is it not time that the 
practice were forbidden to waste its exclusive elegance in the 
haunts of rural life, and that it were introduced into our cities ? 
Should not cock-pits be built by the sale of stock, and capacious 
coops be laid in ? Should not feeders be imported, to deliver 
lectures on the subject ; and ought there not to be competent 
composers engaged, who shall produce a series of militant arias. 



MILITANT ARIAS. 379 

by means of which the cocks could fight with precision, and the 
ears of the audience be simultaneously delectated? For the' 
credit of the nation, and of the growing taste for operative, ac- 
tive music, I ask, can this solemn appeal be resisted ? I think 
not. 

Some churlish, old-fashioned denizens may deem this plan in- 
feasible ; but I can tell them otherwise. Let us secure the im- 
portation of one of those foreign fowl-supervisors. Bumm, for 
instance, ' Cock-feeder to the gentlemen of Leiscestershire ;' let 
him be installed as manager of the New-York Metropolitan Cock- 
pit ; and let the musical department be entrusted to some pas- 
sionate master of the science, who feels the spirit of his trade ; 
and I warrant me the concern will prosper beyond hope. Our 
people need to be advanced in these lovely refinements, and I ask 
leave to explain how it can be done. 

Let the pit be opened as the theatres are at present. Let the 
curtain rise on the feathered combatants, standing each by his 
feeder, looking grim as Tophet, and his plumage quivering with 
impatience. Chanticleers, and fowls of that genus, without dis- 
tinction of sex, are peculiarly susceptible to music. Martial 
melody seems to impregnate them with the very spirit of evil. 
At the juncture in question, let their pugnacious propensities be 
roused by horns, bass-drums, and such like soul-stirring instru- 
ments. Let the audience hear the gathering storm of sound 
which impels the fighters onward, every note kindling their ad- 
venturous intentions, and ' sticking in their crops' with ominous 
energy. What an interesting picture is thus presented ! 

* See to their desks Apollo's sons repair — 
Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair ; 
In unison their various tones to tune, 
Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon; 
In soft vibrations sighs the whispering lute; 
Twang goes the harpsichord — too-too, the flute ; 
Brays the loud trumpet, squeal<s the fiddle sharp, 
Winds the French horn, and rings the tingling harp ; 
'Till like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, 
Attunes to order the chaotic din.' 

After the overture, let the fighting begin, to slow music. Let 
the fiddlers scrape out the gaft-time ; and if the cocks do battle 
' in silver,' let the music be made to imitate the jingling of that 
pleasant metal. As the combat deepens, the various instruments 
should express the growling discord ; and when the unsuccess- 
ful cock begins to give in, let that peculiar burst of melody call- 
ed a colhjwabble by the cockneys, which ejtpresses something be- 
tween a squeal and a wheeze, he ecstacised forth from the bowels 



380 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

of some ancient fiddle, cracked for the purpose. This would be 
truly interesting ; and when the discomfited fowl gave his final 
flutter, let his act of tumbling over be accompanied by that ' strain 
which has a dying fall.' 

A full blast of fac-simile cock-crowing should then proceed 
from the orchestra, significant of victory. After this, a gush of 
soft, low airs should denote the end of the strife, and express in 
descriptive measures, the falling of the feathers that have been 
antagonistically educed from the combatants during the fray, and 
which will just then be floating naturally around. The finale 
could be selected with propriety from the variaiions of Jim Crow. 
Should an after-piece be required, a set-to between the feeders 
might come off, before the assembly. 

This sketch is very imperfect ; but it embodies a conception 
which I have long groaned withal, and of which I am proud ; 
namely, the establishment of Cock-fighting by Music. The plan 
is stupendous, I know ; and, Hke all great undertakings, w^ill 
probably meet with opposition ; but the march of Taste will 
cause it to succeed. Humanity, decency, dignity, and other 
cabalistic words, of no particular import, may be employed against 
it; but this refined amusement must make its way, and float 
sweetly into favor, under the smiles of Euterpe. I am now in 
active correspondence with my worthy friend Adrian Q. Jebb, 
Esq., private cock-feeder to an English nobleman whose name I 
am not at liberty to disclose ; and I am happy in believing that 
he will yet visit America, to instruct our aristocracy in the modus 
ajperandi of his profession. 

I merely mention my plan at present, owing to the want of 
time, and shall perhaps make further disclosures to the public 
hereafter. In the meanwhile, I will merely remark, that sub- 
scription books for the Metropolitan Cock-pit will soon be open, 
and the script ready for delivery. The opening address is being 
prepared by the celebrated author of ' The Antediluvians ;' and 
the whole establishment will be well appointed, in all respects. 
I anticipate the co-operation of every fellow-citizen, whose veins 
contain any gentle blood, and who can trace his pedigree back 
to his grandfather without stumbling on an artisan. It is to such, 
fit audience though few, that I commend my enterprise. 

Brummagem. 



BIG LIARS. 381 



BIG LIARS. 



There can be no doubt of the fact, that Lemuel Gulliver has, 
in modern days, enjoyed too exclusive a reputation as a fictionist. 
Munchausen has laurels which, though partly deserved, are some- 
what too exuberant for his deserts. Congreve showed his knowl- 
edge of liars, when he made one of his dramatic characters say 
to another : 

' Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, 
Thou Liar of the first magnitude !' 

Pinto was great in his way, but he was a poor romancer, com- 
pared with Sir John Mandeville. The elastic credulity of that 
gentleman could take in a mountain of mendacity. Marvels, 
that were such to others, were trifles to him ; and with respect to 
the stories he heard in his travels, however gross they were, his 
great belief had stomach for them all. We design to rake up a 
few of his wonders, and by comparing tliem with those of Pinto, 
prove conclusively that the latter is immeasurably distanced, as 
also are Rabelais, Munchausen, Gulliver, and indeed the whole 
olden tribe of pencillers by the way-side. We will begin with 
the Portuguese. 

His travels were of one-and-twenty years' duration. They 
were made in the kingdoms of Ethiopia, China, Tartary, Cau- 
chin-China, Calaminham, Siam, Pegu, Japan, and a great part 
of the East Indies. They were ' done in English by H. C, 
Gent, printed by J. Macock,' and were ' to be sold by Henry 
Herringman, at the sign of the Blew Anchor, in the Lower 
Walk of the London New Exchange,' in the year of grace 1663. 
Poor Pinto ! He suffered much ; and Cervantes has blackened 
his memory by calling him the Prince of Liars. Among the 
various sovereigns of the East with whom he sojourned, and in 
whose various batdes he fought, he does certainly give accounts 
of violence, and misfortunes, and scenes of bloodshed that are 
somewhat enlarged ; but he does not expect them, we imagine, 
to be believed. In his wanderings, he ' five times sufi'ered ship- 
wrack, was sixteen times sold, and thirteen times made a slave.' 
He went first to the Indies, then to Ethiopia, thence to Turkey. 
Here he was purchased by a Greek, (he was then a captive,) 
and sold to a .Jew. Then he was ransomed, and passing to Goa, 
was received into the service of the king of Portugal. Here he 
is engaged in astonishing battles, sees the strangest sights, and 



382 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

does the daily labor of Hector. Here is one of his largest lies. 
• While coasting the ile of Sumatra,' he saith, ' we entred a litel 
River, and saw athwart a wood such a many adders and crawl- 
ing creatures, no less prodigious for their length than for the 
strangeness of their formes, that I shall not marvel if they that 
read this history will 7iot believe my report of them.'' With this 
preamble, he emboldens himself to say : ' Those of this country 
assured us that these creatures are so hardy as there be some of 
them will set upon an Armada, when there is not above four or 
five men in her, and overturn it with their tails, swallowing the 
men whole, without dismembering them !' Gathering confidence 
as he gets on, he observes : 

' In this place also we saw a strange kind of creatures which they call 
Caquisseitan ; they are of the bigness of a great goose, very black and scaly 
on their backs, with a row of sharpe pricks on their chins, as long as a wri- 
ting pen ; moreover they have wings like unto bats, long necks, and a little 
bone growing on their necks resembling a cock's spur, with a very long 
tale, spotted black and green, like unto the lizards of that country ; these 
creatures hop and fly together like grass-hoppers ; and in that manner they 
hunt apes, and such other beasts, whom they pursue even to the tops of the 
highest trees. Also we saw adders that were copped on the crowns of their 
heads, as big as a man's thigli, and so venomous, as the negroes of that 
country informed us, that if any living thing came within the reach of their 
breath it died presently, there being no remedy nor antidote against it. 
We likewise saw others not copped on their crowns, nor so venomous as the 
former, but far greater and longer, with an head as big as a calf s.' 

In the course of h's wanderings, he somehow got into the ser- 
vice of the king of China, during which tim.e the city of Nanquin 
was attempted to be taken by the king of Tartaria, but his army 
was sorely discomfited. Pvlark the result. ' Now,' says Pinto, 
' after they had taken an account of all the dead, there appeared 
four hundred and fifty thousand, the most of whom died by sick- 
ness, as also an hundred thousand horses, and three score thou- 
sand rhinocerots, which were eaten in the space of two months 
and a half, wherein they wanted victual ; so that of eighteen 
hundred thousand men, wherewith the king of Tartaria came to 
besiege Pequin, he carried home seven hundred and fifty thou- 
sand less than he brought.' From carrying on an armament 
against the king of Mattaban, Pinto becomes ambassador to the 
court of Calaminham, whose extraordinary magnificence he 
especially describes, and thence sails down the great river Ritsey, 
whose banks, if we may believe him, are stocked with marvels. 
He makes particular mention of ' certain tawny men, who are 
great archers, having their feet like oxen, but their hands are like 
unto other men, except that they are exceedingly hairy.' He 
saw, beside, ' men named Magarcs, who feed on wild beasts, 



BIG LIARS. 138b 

which they eat raw, such as serpents and adders ; they hunt these 
wild beasts, mounted on certain animals as big as horses, whieh 
have three horns in the middle of their foreheads, with thick, 
short legs, and on the middle of their backs a row of prickles ; 
all the rest of their body is like a great lizard ; beside, they have 
on their necks instead of hair, other prickles, far longer and big- 
ger than those on their backs ; and on the joints of their shoul- 
ders short ivings, (the real hippogritf !) wherewith they fly, as it 
were — leaping the length of five or six-and-twenty paces at a 
grasp.' 

Let us now see how Sir John Mandeville bears away the palm 
in his Travels, * werein is sett down y^ way to the Holie Lond, 
or Lond of Behest and Hieruzaleme ; as also to the londs of the 
Great Caan, and of Prester lohn ; to Indy and diverse other 
countries, with manie and straunge merveilles therein.' His 
tour was commenced in 1322, and ended in 1356, making thir- 
ty-four years' absence from his native land. He went first to 
Egypt, and engaged in the service of the Sultan of that country, 
Melek Maderon. His religion at last induced him to leave that 
court for the Holy Land. Thence he went to Tartary, where, 
with four other knights, he was in the service of the Great Chan. 
His object of travel is thus expressed : ' And for als moche as 
it is long tyme past that there was no general passage ne vyage 
over the see ; and many men were desiren for to here speke of 
the Holy Lond, I, John Mandeville, knyght, that was born in 
Englond, in the town of Seynt Albones, albeit not worthi, passed 
the see in the yeere of our Lord lesu Crist mcccxxii., in the 
day of Seynt Michelle, and hidre to have ben long tyme over the 
see, and have seen and gone thorghe divers londs, and manie 
provinces and kingdomes, and iles, and have passed thorghe 
Tartarye, Lybye, Calde, and a gret partie of Ethiope ; thorghe 
Amazoyne, Inde the less and the more, a gret partie, and thorghe- 
out manie other iles that ben abouten Inde ; where dvvellen 
many divers folkes, and of divers manners and laws, and of di- 
vers schappes of men.' 

Mandeville seemed to labor under a kind of mental elephanti' 
asis. Nothing was too large for his credit. In dragons and evil 
spirits, that carried on their ambulatory carnival on earth, and 
appeared constantly to the ' stark staring eyes' of men, he had 
the fullest belief ; in fact, if we may trust him, he met with them 
in great abundance, and saw their nests, as it were, where most 
they bred and haunted. ' Li Ethiope,' as we learn from him, 
' are such men that have but one foot, and they go so fast that it 
is a grate marvel ; and that is a large foot, for the shadow there- 



384 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

of covereth the body from sun or rain when they he on their 
backs.' In the island of Macameran, which is a ' great ile and 
fair,' he says * the men and women have heads Hke hounds ; they 
are reasonable, and worship an ox for their God ; they are good 
men to fight, and bear a great target wherewith they cover all 
their body, and a spear in their hand.' The population in the 
island of Tarkonet, which he visited, receive this mention : ' In 
this ile, all men are as beasts, and dwell in caves, not having 
wit to make houses. They eat adders, and speke not, but make 
such noises as the beasts do one to another.' He proceeds : 
* There is another ile called Dodyn, and in the same ile are 
many and divers sorts of men who have evil manners. The 
King of this ile is a great lord and mighty, and hath in many iles 
other kings under him ; and in one of these iles are men that 
have but one eije, and that is in the midst of their front ; which 
eat their flesh and fish all raw. And in another ile are men that 
have no heads, and their eyes are in their shoulders, and their 
mouth in their breasts !' 

This gives Mandeville our ' suffrages' as a superior of Pinto. 
No doubt his work was familiar to Shakspeare, who unquestion- 
ably took from it the information which Othello conveyed to the 
grave and reverend seniors, in his great Defence, wherein he 

spoke 

'Of antres vast and deserts idle, 

Of cannibals, that did each other eat, 

And of the Anthropophagi, me7i whose heads 

Do grow beneath their shoulders.' 

Mandeville continues : ' And in another ile nigh-by, are men 
that have ne head, ne eyen, and their mouth is in their shoulders ! 
Another ile is there, where be men that have flat faces without 
noseu and without eyen, but they have two small holes in lew of 
eyen, and they have flatted nosen, withouten lippes. And also in 
that ile are men that have their faces all flat, without eyen, with- 
out mouth, and withouten nose, but they have their eyen and 
their mouth behind, on their shoulders !' 

The old knight was a perfect Yankee in inquisitiveness. These 
are his reasons for going to Tartary. We give them in his own 
quaint language : ' And yee schalle undirstond that my fellowes 
and I with our zomen, we serveden this Emperour (of Tartarj-) 
and weren his soudyoures fifteen moneths agenst the kyng of 
Mancy, that held war agenst him. And the cause was, for we 
hadden grete lust for to see his noblesse, and the estat of his 
corte, and all his governance, to wyt gif it were soche as we her- 
den say that it was.' 



BIG LIARS. ' 885 

He regretted, when at Jerusalem, in the Land of Behest, that 
he could not find many of the relics of our Saviour's crucifixion. 
He gives this account of some of them : ' A part of the crown 
wherewithal our Lord was crowned, and eke one of the nales, 
and the speer's hed, and manie other relicks, are in France and 
Paris, in the kyng's chapelle. This crown was made of junks 
of the see ; half whereof is at Paris, and the other at Constanti- 
nople ; and the speer's shafte the emperour of Almany hath. 
Likewise the emperour of Constantinople saith that he hath the 
speer's head — and I have seen his.^ 

It was a subject of great regret to our traveller, that he did not 
visit Paradise! a place which he approached 'very nearly,' but 
concluded somehow not to enter. We wonder not at his scruples 
of unworthiness, after the large stories he had previously told. 
Yet on reflection, we can hardly conceive that, after recording 
those stupendous narrations, he could shrink from any enterprise. 
But although he did 7iot visit Paradise in propria persona, he leads 
us to infer that he met a great plenty of persons who had ; and 
he ofiers us his information on the subject, with an air of earnest 
confidence, as if he could not be gainsayed. He knew very 
well, (if he disbelieved his own story, which is doubtful,) that 
contradiction was almost impossible, since travel, in those days was 
a matter of Herculean enterprise, seldom entered upon, save by 
Quixottes errant, and wights of suspicious integrity of brain. 
Therefore he was at liberty to speak as he did of the place be- 
loved by our first parents, and where often 

' Hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair 
That ever since in Love's embraces met : 
Adam the goodhest man of men, since born 
His son's, the fairest of her daughters, Eve.' 

He does not enter, like the sublime and imaginative Milton, upon 
a picture of the verdant coverts of laurel and myrde, the bright 
acanthus, the roses, jessamines, crocus, and hyacinth, that 
' broidered with rich inlay' that holy ground ; but he simply saith : 
' Of Paradys ne can I not speken properly, for I was not there. 
It is far beyond, and that forthinketh me : also I was not worthi. 
This Paradys is enclosed all about with a wall, and men wyt not 
whereof it is made, for the walls beinge covered all over with 
mosse, as it seemeth : and that wall stretchethe fro the South 
unto the North, and it hath not but one entree, and that is closed 
with Fyre-brenning.' This idea of the burning fire at the gate 
of Paradise he derived without question from the early Scriptures, 
wherein is recorded the ejection of Adam and Eve from Eden, 
whom God sent forth to till the earth et collocavit ungelum qui 

25 



386 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

"prceferebat manu igneum gladium, ut custodiret aditum Paradisi. 
Indeed the hints of many of his gratuities are drawn from the 
Sacred Writings, which are thus perverted and obscured to his 
reader. 

We have written enough, we think, to convince the most 
skeptical that Mandeville is a preeminent fabuHst, worthy to stand 
like a Colossus among the great Fibbers of the Past. A closer 
comparison of his claims to distinction in this regard, will add 
fresh leaves to his crown. We have not forgotten the Pantagruel 
and Gargantua of Rabelais ; the tin horn and cherry-tree of Mun- 
chausen ; the Lilliputians that beset Gulliver, nor the extraordi- 
nary means which he subdued great conflagrations withal ; but 
for * large discourse' in fiction, we prefer Mendez Pinto to all of 
them, and Mandeville to Pinto. 



LAFAYETTE AND WASHINGTON. 387 



LAFAYETTEANB WASHINGTON. 

AN ADDRESS PRONOUNCED BEFORE THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY OF LAFAT- 
ETTE COLLEGE, EASTON, PA., JULY 4, 1840. 

The events which bring a Nation up, as it were, on one day 
simultaneously together, to worship near the high altars dedica- 
ted by virtuous patriotism to the genius of liberty, and the ex- 
pansion of the dear rights of mankind, are of all others, the most 
ennobling. They constitute the landmarks by which Republics 
are guided in their career ; they furnish the test whereby men of 
eminence in a state are tried, and distinguished, or forgotten. 
On any day, connected with the history of a great man who has 
done good to his country, there teems a consecrated interest. 
Why is it, that on certain occasions in the experience of every 
country but those which are purely despotic, the universal heart 
of the people throbs forth in sympathetic unison; that men and 
women gather together, the one with their energy and pride of 
presence, the other with the graces and blandishments, which 
give superior beauty and glow to existence; to celebrate, per- 
haps the release of a continent, an empire, or a section, from 
bonds and confusion, into brightness, and liberty, and peace, 
and to remember, with pleasure and pride, the lofty spirits who 
ministered to so glorious a consummation ? Why is it, that on 
such occasions, even reverence wants language, and the spirit of 
Eulogy has neither boundary nor curb ? It is because, in a just 
minded nation, those who mourn, must triumph together ; be- 
cause, where we lament the upright and the lost, we can yet rev- 
erence and cherish their example for the living. 

In addressing an Association such as that before which I have 
now the honor to appear, and which combines, with its own title, 
that of the institution of which it is, in one high sense, a part, it 
is impossible, that on a day like this, I could perceive, with re- 
gard to the distinguished and immortal names of Lafayette 
and Washington, a divided duty of remembrance. They 
were both soldiers of Liberty ; both were in the van-guard of 
independence and of freedom ; and how few things may be said 
of the one, which are not equally due to the other ! Let it be 
our task, then, humbly to develope the greatness and the good- 
ness evinced in the course of each ; briefly to show forth the 



388 PROSE MISCKLLANIES. 

high and holy motives by which they were guided — the honor- 
able means and influence they employed in pursuing the advan- 
tages of which each was successfully the seeker and guide ; and 
the manner in which, after well-spent lives, they were enabled 
to look back upon the fruits of their labors with contentment con- 
cerning the past, and glorious hopes for the future. 

In the College and the Society bearing these two names, 
there is discernible, in their very adoj^tion, the spirit of consistent 
and faithful freedom. Lafayette and WASHI^'GTON, though 
born in different countries, and under different auspices, were 
yet kindred spirits. They were reapers, sent forth into the 
abundant harvest-field of revolutionary triumph. Each of these 
immortal men seemed conscious that he had come into the world, 
with lofty acts depending on his soul and arm, and which he 
must fulfil. History tells how they were carried to their com- 
pletion. 

In treating of the character of Lafayette, it has been too 
much the custom of our writers and speakers to refer, with more 
particularity and emphasis, to the course of greatness and benefit 
which he pursued here so brilliantly on American ground, and 
in the infancy of the American republic; even when, though a 
republic in spirit, it had not quite acquired to itself the name. 
But fondly and gratefully as we may dwell upon those crises and 
adventures in his wonderful history, there is a double beauty in 
his earliest and latest efforts for liberty at Home. He was ever 
on the side of just laws ; but against tyranny of every name, he 
waged perpetual warfare. Of high birth, and exalted, noble con- 
nexions, the false chivalry and deceptions of Courts appeared tb 
have no charm for his frank and open mind. His aspirations 
were of a higher order. Who, in England's history — I speak 
with no invidious comparisons between that country and France — 
has appeared with the same outset, blandishments, and induce- 
ments to engage in the cause of royal successions, ever turned 
in his mind, to make them consonant with the cause of freedom, 
or else to leave them ? 

When, in the calm surveys of history. Time seems to yield 
up his trophies, and death to restore the mouldered victims of 
his voiceless band ; and we read of the crimes that cursed, or 
the bright deeds that blessed a century, we can draw our com- 
parisons between the man who is merely great from ambition, 
without being good, or he who is at once, in uniform act and in- 
tention, from youth to age, both great and good together. Let 
us, for example, compare the deaths of Cromwell, or Richard of 
Bosworth field, and that of Lafayette at La Grange. Crorh- 



liAFATETTE AND WASHINGTON. 389 

well, full of unquenchable passions, was fierce and desperate to 
the last ; and how died he, who, with Plantagenets, and turmoils^ 
and murders, held his very life a mystery, to be solved as Fate 
might utter, caring not for deeds of darkness or a wounded 
name ? Roll back the tide of years, and see him : the fragrance 
of Summer is in his nostrils, as he gazes through the midnight 
upon the watch-fires of the armies, and hears the armorers ac- 
complishing the knights, and the neighing war-horse waiting for 
the noise of the captains and the shouting ; but his spirit is ill at 
ease ; the merit of defeat which is due him, he knows full well ; 
and the light of his star has a baleful significance, as he sinks to 
his troubled rest. Then, 

Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering ! 

There flit the slaves of Conscience round ; 
With boding tongue foul murders numbering — 
Sleep's leaden portals catch the sound. 
In his dream of blood, for mercy quaking, 
At his own dull scream ! behold his waking ! 
Hark I the trumpet's warning breath. 
Echoes round that vale of death. 
Unhorsed, unhelmed, disdaining shield, 
The panting tyrant scours the field. 

Vengeance I he meets tliy dooming blade ! 
The scourge of earth, the scorn of Heaven — 
He falls — unwept and unforgiven, 
And all his guilty glories fade. 
Like a crushed reptile in the dust he lies. 
And Hate's last lightnings quiver from his eyes I 

Sprague's Ode to ShaJcspeare. 

Thus perished one of the most famous dukes of England ! 
How did the Marquis of La Grange expire ? As the setting 
sun descends to his beautiful evening pavilion, with gorgeous 
companies of clouds waiting around him, until in the bright 
waters of the West, he sinks to ' where his islands of refresh- 
ment lie !' 

When Lafayette came to America, with a noble apprehen- 
sion in his heart, that our great crisis could not transact itself 
without him, his native land was just fermenting into a condition, 
wherein, if he had been so basely-minded, he might have attained 
an eminence, commanding half that kingdom. What he did 
here, \vq know ; how he co-operated with the ' Saviour of his 
Country,' for her good ; the wounds of his green youth, at Bran- 
dywine ; his coping with CornwaUis, who declared that ' the boy 
should not escape him ;' his forced marches to Virginia ; tiie 
liberality with which he poured out, Uke water, his treasure and 
credit for the welfare of those troops, who were but too happy to 



890 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

serve under him ; the siege of Yorktown ; his repeated return, 
after his first visit, together with his efforts in Spain to assist the 
American cause, which peace happily rendered unnecessary ; 
these facts are but household words, on American tongues. 
Thank Heaven ! they are words that come from the heart, and 
yet have no gloss of newness, or of momentary show. Let us 
bear in mind, that on his last return, but one, to France, after 
being elected to the membership of the National Assembly, he* 
was appointed the Commander-in-chief of the National Guards 
of Paris, two days after the celebrated attack upon the Bastille. 
How might the effect of this attack have worked upon the mind 
of a hero, wrongly ambitious ? 

History answers this question, in the biography of so many 
persons that it would demand and deserve volumes to chronicle, 
either their doings or the consequences of those doings. Re- 
corders or annahsts, Bailly, Dusaulx, Besanval ; not to 
name innumerable others, by letter or printed page, kept up the 
record of that dreadful time, as pictures for posterity. How 
triumphantly could Lafayette have careered upon that storm ; 
not only with glory, but without danger ? And yet, politically 
speaking, it was, for a season, the Euroclydon of France. Even 
in our far-off western America — 'our own green forest-land' — 
the scenes of the Revolution in France were familiar to youthful 
minds and eyes, and reveries ; and the keeper who let forth ' The 
Aged Prisoner, Released from the Bastille,' was ranked with 
Giant Despair, of Doubting Castle, in the ' Pilgrim's Progress' 
of BuNYAN, who accidentally condescended to sleep, or be indif- 
ferent, or otherwise engaged, while his victims were departing. 

Such were even the rudest notions here, of an event which 
struck awe through France. It awakens our highest admiration 
of Lafayette, that vrhile he might have profited in wielding, 
at this moment, the Parisian populace at will, he sought no 
power, not justly and purely derived. The flag of France re- 
ceived, at that time, as it were, from his hand, the last emblem 
of the tri-color; and his prophecy has been fulfilled, that it 
passes in triumph around the world. He had seen, in America, 
that honest revolution was not disobedient to honest domestic 
laws ; and with that glorious lesson before him, he followed it in 
practice to the utmost, until his death. He showed, in all things, 
that he was in very deed a republican. In opposing, with Bail- 
ly, the Jacobin club ; in swearing, in the name of four millions 
of National Guards, fidelity to the Constitution ; in advocating 
the extinction of empty titles of nobility, and renouncing his own ; 
in the dungeons of Austria; in his watchful, yet characteristic 



LAFAYETTE AND WASHINGTON. 391 

course with that great captain of bis age, Napoleon ; in the revo- 
lution of eighteen hundred and thirty — and in the serene declin;e 
of his many and useful years — who, and how few, of the various 
military and civil dignitaries, that in Europe have risen, and 
shone, and fell, have been his parallel ? 

It has been said by a distinguished and far-reaching spirit of 
the nineteenth century, that there is that within the life of the 
humblest mortal, which, well considered, would furnish forth the 
substance and material of an epic poem- If that be true, that 
must be a daring mind, a mind of utter leisure, and with a strong 
and sustaining wing, which would attempt to pour forth, in verse, 
the deeds of daring and of greatness, of comprehensive benevo- 
lence, and Christian virtue, which signalized Lafayette. 
What an extended and changeful picture unfolds itself, in con- 
nexion with his last visit to our shores ! A boundless continent, 
which, when he had before come among us, was the abode of a 
terrified population ; of wild beasts of prey, and wilder savages, 
glutting, whensoever and wheresoever they could, their thirst for 
human blood, had begun to bud and bloom, and blossom as the 
rose. Cities, towns, and villages, had sprung up to beautify the 
waste places of the republic ; and v^here streams which might 
cross the Atlantic, were beforetime shadowed with interminable 
forests, he beheld the smoking chariots of Fulton, gliding in 
their majest}'' and might ; innumerable marts, gilding and suffus- 
ing with life and business, the length and breadth of the land ; a 
united people ; a sacred constitution ; and the prospects of a 
nation, brilliant beyond the utmost blazon of the pencil, of the 
pen. Where the Delaware slept near its springs, in calm tran- 
quillity or overshadowed murmurings, he saw the marks of glo- 
rious improvements, linking realm with realm in our confederacy; 
and her institutions, grants, and intellectual Associations, per- 
petuating his name. 

Let us now briefly turn to Washington. We can not do the 
injustice to any here present to suppose it requisite to particu- 
larize the great events in the career of that incomparable man. 
But, if this republic ever incurs the charge of being ungrateful 
to her largest benefactor, next to the Almighty, it will be when 
it shall be considered repctitio?i to venerate his character and 
laud his deeds. We will not go over the red battle-fields of his 
country, where he shone in conquest, or signalized his military 
stratagie in retreat. The whole synthesis, so to speak, of his 
character, was to deserve success, and he ever achieved it. The 
character of Washington was such that it overawed those who 



392 FROSB MISCELLANIES. 

plotted against him, and discomfited his enemies. When he 
rebuked an Arnold, we seem to see, in that office, the action, 
and almost to hear the voice, of Cicero against the Roman con- 
spirator, while he charged him, in the senate, with having, on 
the previous evening, at M. Lucca's house, divided Italy into 
shares with his accomplices ; some for the field, and others for 
the capitol. Washington had the power of making a corrupt 
ambition quail before him, at the same time that he caused the 
effects of that ambition, through precept, not through example 
of his enemies, to operate in his behalf. In this, there was 
something more than the hero. He, who on the field of battle, 
could call his indomitable legions, and ' perpetual glories round 
him,' in the wars of the republic, could, in his walks of peace, 
invoke the co-operation and the counsel of the philosopher and 
the Christian. In the laws of God, he saw and recognised the 
laws of man. He heard the voice of the people in favor of a 
course upon which he could look back at its close with satis- 
faction and with pride ; and he recognised it as the voice of 
Heaven, which first called him to the field of conflict, and 
crowned his efforts for his country with abundant success. He 
never knew what it was to falter^ in any undertaking. With an 
estimate of chances in his mind, which bespoke not only the 
man of caution, but the man of nerve, he shrunk from no en- 
terprise. The result showed that he regarded the right, which 
he was to vindicate, in the truest light. He knew that he was 
not laboring for himself; the glory that pertained to the perform- 
ance of genuine duty, he was aware would accrue to him, in an 
abundant harvest ; but this, with him, was a secondary consid- 
eration. So thoroughly was his great mind imbued with the 
truth, that one who devotes himself rightfully and sincerely to 
his country, becomes, of consequence, whether successful or un- 
successful, an heir of fame among all the sons of freedom, that 
he acted always on that principle, in the midst of the severest 
trials to which his military and civic career was subjected. He 
replied to calumny with silence ; against artful and hidden op- 
position, with which he triumphantly contended, he opposed 
only the shield of his own rectitude, and appealed only, as a 
guaranty for the future, to the past records of his career of glory. 
While state after state, combined to do him honor ; after a bril- 
liant military and civic life, he retires to Mount Vernon, in quest 
of his much-loved repose, which the best of men have ever loved ; 
and like the pure Scipio, on the Cumaean shore, addressed them- 
selves in their privacy to the benefit of mankind. In this posi- 
tion, as himself did, we have leisure to survey the calm bright- 



LAFAYETTE AND WASHINGTON. 393 

ness of his nature, and the inestimable value of the services he 
had rendered to freedom throughout the world. There is ao 
analysis of his character, by his friend and faithful adviser, and 
the philosopher of his age, the illustrious Marshall, which has 
never been surpassed by any American or European pen. Nothing 
can be added to it, without producing tawdry ornament, or blind 
hyperbole ; nothing taken away, without diminishing the wonder- 
ful and perfect symmetry of the whole. 

' The manners of Washington,' he tells us, ' were rather re- 
.served than free, though they partook nothing of that dryness and 
sternness which accompany reserve, when carried to an extreme ; 
and on all proper occasions, he would relax sufficiently to show 
how highly he was gratified by the charms of conversation, and 
the pleasures of society. His person and whole deportment ex- 
hibited an unaffected and indescribable dignity, unmingled with 
haughtiness, of which, all who approached him were sensible, 
and the attachment of those who possessed his friendship, and 
enjoyed his intimacy, was ardent, but always respectful. His 
temper was humane, benevolent, and conciliatory ; but there 
was quickness in his sensibility to anything apparently offensive, 
which experience had taught him to watch and correct. In the 
management of his private affairs, he exhibited an exact yet liberal 
economy. His funds were not prodigally wasted on capricious 
and ill-examined schemes, nor refused to beneficial, though cost- 
ly improvements ; they remained, therefore, competent to that 
expensive establishment, which his reputation, added to his hospi- 
table temper, had in some measure imposed upon him, and to 
those donations which real distress has a right to claim from opu- 
lence. He made no pretensions to that vivacity w^hich fascinates, 
or to that wit which dazzles and frequently imposes on the un- 
derstanding. More solid than brilliant, judgment rather than 
genius constituted the most prominent feature of his character. 
As a military man, he was brave, enterprising, and cautious. 
That malignity which has sought to strip him of all the higher 
qualities of a general, has conceded to him personal courage, and 
a firmness of resolution which neither dangers nor difficulties 
could shake. But candor will allow him other great and valua- 
ble endowments. If his military course does not abound with 
splendid achievements, it exhibits a series of judicious measures, 
adapted to circumstances, which probably saved his country. 
Placed, without having studied the theory or been taught in the 
school of experience the practice of war, at the head of an un- 
disciplined, ill-organized multitude, which was unused to the re- 
straints, and unacquainted with the ordinary duties of a camp ; 



394 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

without the aid of officers possessing those lights which the com- 
mander-in-chief was yet to acquire, it would have been a miracle 
indeed had his conduct been altogether faultless. But possess- 
ing an energetic and distinguishing mind, on which the lessons 
of experience were never lost, his errors, if he committed any, 
were quickly repaired ; and those measures which the state of 
things rendered most advisable, were seldom if ever, neglected. 
Inferior to his adversary in the numbers, in the equipment, and 
in the discipline of his troops, it is evidence of real merit that no 
great and decisive advantages were ever obtained over him, and 
the opportunity to strike an important blow never passed away 
unused. He has been termed the American Fabius ; but those 
who compare his actions with his means, will perceive at least as 
much of Marcellus as of Fabius in his character. He could not 
have been more enterprising, without endangering the cause he 
defended, nor have put more to hazard, without incurring, justly, 
the imputation of rashness. Not relying upon those chances 
which sometimes give a favorable issue to attempts apparently 
desperate, his conduct was regulated by calculations, made upon 
the capacities of his army, and the real situation of his country. 
When called a second time to command the armies of the United 
States, a change of circumstances had taken place, and he medi- 
tated a corresponding change of conduct. In modeling the army 
of seventeen hundred and ninety-eight, he sought for men dis- 
tinguished for their boldness of execution, not less for their pru- 
dence in council, and contemplated a system of continued attack. 
* The enemy,' said the General, in his private letters, ' must 
never be permitted to gain foothold on our shores.' In his civil 
administration, as in his military career, were exhibited ample and 
repeated proofs of that practical good sense, of that sound judg- 
ment, which is, perhaps, the most rare, and is certainly the most 
valuable quality of the human mind. Devoting himself to the 
duties of his station, and pursuing no object distinct from the 
public good, he was accustomed to contemplate, at a distance, 
those critical situations in which the United States might proba- 
bly be placed, and to digest, before the occasion required action, 
the line of conduct which it would be proper to observe. Taught 
to distrust first impressions, he sought to acquire all the informa- 
tion which was attainable, and to hear without prejudice all the 
reasons which could be urged for or against a particular measure. 
His own judgment was suspended until it became necessary to 
determine, and his decisions, thus maturely made, were seldom, 
if ever, to be shaken. His conduct, therefore, was systematic, 
and the great objects of his administration were steadily pursued. 



LAFAYETTE AND WASHINGTON. 395 

Respecting, as the first magistrate in a free government must 
ever do, the real and dehberate sentiments of the people, theij" 
gusts of passion passed over without ruffling the smooth surface 
of his mind. Trusting to the reflecting good sense of the nation 
for approbation and support, he had the magnanimity to pursue 
its real interests in opposition to its temporary prejudices, and, 
though far from being regardless of popular favor, he could 
never stoop to retain, by deserving to lose it. In more instances 
than one, we find him committing his whole popularity to hazard, 
and pursuing steadily, in opposition to a torrent, which would 
have overwhelmed a man of ordinary firmness, that course which 
had been dictated by a sense of duty. In speculation he was a 
real republican, devoted to the constitution of his country, and to 
that system of equal political rights on which it is founded. But 
between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is 
like that between chaos and order. Real liberty, he thought was 
to be preserved only by preserving the authority of the laws, and 
maintaining the energy of government. Scarcely did society 
present two characters, which, in his opinion, less resembled 
each other than a patriot and a demagogue. No man has ever 
appeared upon the theatre of public action whose integrity was 
more incompatible, or whose principles were more perfectly free 
from the contamination of those selfish and unworthy passions 
which find their nourishment in the conflicts of party. Having 
no views which required concealment, his real and avowed mo- 
tives were the same ; and his whole correspondence does not 
furnish a single case, from w^hich even an enemy would infer that 
he was capable, under any circumstances, of stooping to the em- 
ployment of duplicity. No truth can be uttered with more con- 
fidence, than that his ends were always upright, and his means 
always pure. He exhibits the rare example of a politician, to 
whom wiles were absolutely unknown, and whose professions to 
foreign governments, and to his own countrymen, were always 
sincere. In him was fully exemplified the real distinction 
which forever exists between wisdom and cunning, and the im- 
portance, as well as truth of the maxim, that ' honesty is the best 
policy.' If Washington possessed ambition, that passion was, 
in his bosom, so regulated by principles, or controlled by cir- 
cumstances, that it was neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue 
was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was 
personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and im- 
portant stations to which he was called by the public voice were 
unsought by himself: and in consenting to fill them, he seems 
rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interest 



396 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

would be thereby promoted, than to his particular inclination. 
Neither the extraordinary partiality of the American people, the 
extravagant praises which were bestowed upon him, nor the in- 
veterate opposition and malignant calumnies which he expe- 
rienced, had any visible influence on his conduct. The cause is 
to be looked for in the texture of his mind. In him, that innate 
and unassuming modesty, which adulation would have offended, 
which the voluntary plaudits of millions could not betray into in- 
discretion, and which never obtruded upon others his claims to 
superior consideration, was happily blended with a high and cor- 
rect sense of personal dignity, and with a just consciousness of 
that respect which is due to station. Without exertion, he could 
maintain the happy medium between that arrogance which 
wounds, and that facility which allows the office to be degraded 
in the person who fills it. It is impossible to contemplate the 
great events which have occurred in the United States, under the 
auspices of Washington, without ascribing them, in some meas- 
ure, to him. If we ask the causes of the prosperous issue of a 
war, against the successful termination of which there were so 
many probabilities ; of the good which was produced, and the 
ill which was avoided during an administration fated to contend 
with the strongest prejudices that a combination of circumstances, 
and of passions could produce ; of the constant favor of the 
great mass of his fellow-citizens, and of the confidence which, to 
to the last moment of his life, they reposed in him — the answer, 
so far as these causes may be found in his character, will furnish 
a lesson well meriting the attention of those who are candidates 
for fame. Endowed by nature with a sound judgment, and an 
accurate, discriminating mind, he feared not that laborious atten- 
tion which made him perfectly master of those subjects, in all 
their relations, on which he was to decide ; and this essential 
quality was guided by an unvarying sense of moral right, which 
would tolerate the employment only of those means that w^ould 
bear the most rigid examination, by a fairness of intention, 
which neither sought nor required disguise, and by a purity of 
virtue which was not only untainted, but unsuspected.' 

Such was Washington : a combination and a form where 
every human grace and virtue appeared to have set an indelible 
seal. If we look at the various peculiarities of the various great 
men, for example, of the ancient republic, we shall find that he 
embraced the good ones of them all : 

His was Octavian's prosperous star, 
The rush of Caesar's conquering car, 
At Battle's call ; 



LAFAYETTE AND WASHINGTON. 3JV 

His Scipio's virtue; his, the skill. 
And the iodoniitable will 

Of Hannibal. 
The clemency of Antonine, 
And pure Aurelius' love divine ; 
In tented field and bloody fray, 
An Alexander's vigorous sway, 

And stern command: 
The faith of Const;intine — ay, more — 
The fervent love Camillus bore 

His native land.* 

But the crowning glory of Washington's course, was it.s 
close. Nothing could be more glorious than such a life, but 
such a death. Encircled by his family ; watched by eyes that 
loved him, and attended with tender ministrations, his body 
parted from his soul, and that immortal guest of his earthly 
tabernacle ascended to Heaven. As that hour approached, his 
contentment and peace were indescribable. He saw, if his 
thoughts, were then momentarily of earth, through the long vista 
of coining years, the grandeur and beauty of a new republic, 
made free by his hand ; teeming with all kinds of riches, and 
filling with a virtuous and well-governed people. How beautiful 
a prospect ! We read, of late, of tiie death of a king of Europe, 
who, %vhen on his dying pillow, caused a mirror to be placed 
near his bed, that he might see his army defile in their glittering 
uniforms before him; an insubstantial picture — mere shadows 
on glass, showing in a most striking emblem, how the glory of 
this world passeth away. But Washington had retired from 
his armies ; throughout the land , 

' Glad Peace was tinkling in the f^irmer's bell. 
And singing with the reapers :' 

and he had no regret in his hour of departure. 

Can we scarcely refrain from allowing to that hour, the unut- 
terable splendor of an apotheosis V He had fought bis warfare ; 
he had left his testimony for the rights of men, and obedience to 
Heaven ; and is it too much to imagine him looking, at his last 
moment, toward Heaven, with his dying eyes, and exclaiming 
with chastened rapture : 

» What means yon blaze on high t 
The empyrean sky. 
Like the rich veil of some proud fane, is rending ; 
I see the star-paved land. 
Where all the angels stand, 

• Coplas de Manrique. 



39S PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

Even to the highest height, in burning rows asceriding ; 

Some with their wings outspread, 

And bowed the stately head, 
As on some errand of God's love departing, 
Like flames from evening conflagration starting', 
The heralds of Ommpotenck are they. 
And neiuer earth they come, to waft my soul away '* 



MEPHISTOPHILES IN NEW- YORK. 399 



MEPHISTOPHILES IN NEW-YORK. 



' Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.' 

The Bard of Eden. 



When the last moon was new, at the hour of midnight, I as- 
cended to the house-top of my dweUing, to pass an hour in si- 
lence and meditation. The solemn skies, fretted with dazzling 
stars, and 'thick inlaid with patines of bright gold,' rose sublime- 
ly above me. The winds of autumn surged and murmured in my 
ear, as they swept from distant woods and waters, filling me with 
profound and lofty imaginations. There are few things so im- 
pressive to my fancy as the moaning of autumnal winds. They 
stir the painted leaves with a melancholy rustle ; the faded hon- 
ors of the summer sink upon their wings, and they float onward 
like the sighs of mourners at a funeral, or the voice of some 
viewless spirit, infusing into the awe-struck mind a vision of 
eternity. At this time, I was peculiarly chastened and subdued. 
I thought of the frailty of my being ; of the friends I had lost, 
and of the uncertain tenure wherewith those who remained were 
folded to my bosom. I thought of the re-visitation of immortal in- 
telligences on the earth ; and as a mass of many-colored foliage, 
whose tendrils had overrun a towering edifice near me, waved to 
the breeze, meseemed I heard the accents of buried friends, 
coming back to my hearing as in vanished days. A deep feeling 
of mystery stole upon me ; a sense of awe, which I can not de- 
scribe. ' What,' 1 soliloquized, ' should prevent the communion 
of embodied and disembodied souls ? Why should there not 
come to us, in these sad and spiritual hours, the habitants of 
other and brighter worlds, to tell us that beyond this dim diurnal 
sphere, where change and decay are ever occurring, there are 
places where the loves of the heart are not broken by death ; 
where the flowers are forever in blossom, and no eye becomes 
dim ? It is a sweet and tranquilizing thought. It lifts my soul, 
and I feel that I am immortal. Why should we not mingle with 
the departed, in spiritual communion ? Do they not come to 
us sometimes ; are they not present with us, though we know it 
not? 

How often from the steep 

Of echoina; bill or thicket, can we hear 
Celestial voices ? 



400 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

And who has not seemed to hear, in dreams and reveries, the ac- 
cents of the departed ? 

Filled with these thoughts, I sat upon the house-top, watching 
a few clouds that lay along the West, over the dim hills of Jer- 
sey. They were of curious and fantastic shape, continually 
changing, like the palest colors of a kaleidoscope. At last, one 
of them appeared to separate in a waving fleece from the rest, 
and to approach the city. Flakes of fairy light seemed playing 
around it as it came, and as it passed over the river, the reflec- 
tion, like a golden column, trembled in the water. A light mist 
soon gathered about me ; an odor, like the pure breath which 
we sometimes inhale on high mountains, hovered near ; and in 
the twinkling of an eye, the cloud took a human shape. Huge 
wings expanded from its shoulders, tinct with innumerable hues ; 
form and features were established before me ; and a Spirit, full 
of beauty and intelligence, passed by my side, and paused where 
I stood. 

' Fear not,' said the Spirit, in tones whose awful sweetness 
still lingers in my ear, ' I am thy better angel. Thou thirstest 
for knowledge ; thou art poring evermore over ancient books, 
and uncouth tomes in difficult characters, to study man. Thou 
needest better helps for thy desire. Thou hast need to look, 
and to see thy fellows ; to compare the fate of those whom thou 
mayest envy or pity, with thine own ; then wilt thou feel at thy 
heart the voice of contentment and the charm of tranquility.' 

As I heard these words, I looked up, and lo ! the Vision was 
gone. All was stillness around me ; but by my side there lay a 
telescope of pearl. On its edge, in letters of light, it was thus 
written : 

' Mortal ! by this gift thou art endowed with the faculty oi un- 
obstructed sight. That which bounds and circumscribes the ob- 
servation of others, shall have no power over thine own. Walls 
and gates shall melt before thy glance, as thou lookest : the hu- 
man heart shall be unveiled before thee, with all its wonders. 
Gaze, then, mortal, and remember as thou gazest, that thy super- 
natural present is of short duration.' 

I lifted the mysterious object with a trembling hand. I raised 
it to my eye, and directed it toward the street beneath me. A 
flood of light seemed to play around the direction in which I 
turned, and every thing became visible. The Great Thorough- 
fare, over which so many thousands had walked during the day, 
was solemn and deserted. A few faint lamps, almost obscured 
by the superior radiance which flowed from my instrument, could 
be perceived, twinkling in feeble rows afar, stretching to the 



MEPHISTOPHILES IN NEW-TORK. 401 

glimmering waters of the bay. At intervals a belated reveler 
went reeling to his home. 

I gazed with eager attention. Now and then, I could per- 
ceive a familiar visage. At last I beheld, standing by the steps 
of a proud mansion, a youth whom I recognised as an admirer 
of one of its young inmates. He was holding by the railing of 
the steps, and looking up with maudlin eyes toward a window 
whose shutters were tightly closed. No one was considered 
more exemplary in life and conduct than himself. He was a 
communicant of the church, a devout reader of prayers on Sun- 
day, and one whose responses in the litany were ever solemn 
and sonorous. He was betrothed to the damsel of whom I have 
spoken ; while she, unknowing of his declining goodness, wasted 
upon him all her wealth of love. 

I lifted my instrument to the window where the intoxicated 
youth was gazing. The wall and casement melted away like a 
scroll ; and I saw, kneeling by a bed-side, a young lady in pray- 
er. Her hands were clasped in earnest supplication ; she lifted 
her dove-like eyes to heaven, and implored blessings for her be- 
loved one, until her cheeks were wet with tears. Then rising, 
she sought her pillow, and shading with rich locks her sweet face, 
sunk into slumber. 

I moved my glass and looked yet farther. A wall melted 
again from my vision ; and in a beautiful apartment, studded 
with splendid furniture, a lady reclined upon an ottoman, rock- 
ing to sleep a cherub babe. Her tears fell fast, as she mused ; 
and now and then a feeble wail escaped her lips, half lullaby, 
half sigh. Ever and anon, the infant would ' ope its violet eyes,' 
and smile with its coral mouth upon the anxious mother who 
kept a vigil by his side. 

' Sweet boy !' she faltered, ' would that thy father were come!' 
and then she kissed the babe, with fond enthusiasm. She con- 
tinued alternately to sing and weep. Soon, I beheld a door open, 
and the husband enter. Care sat upon his features. His fore- 
head was shadowed as with a cloud. He sat down by his wife 
and child, in sullen despondency. 

'Well, my love,' he said, with firm and resolute accents, ' a 
change is coming upon us. Heretofore we have been affluent, 
luxurious, and as the world said, happy. Gold has been ours in 
benevolent profusion. With me, how prosperous has been the 
world ! My ships have returned to me with the treasures of 
other climes ; enormous profits have ensued from my adventures ; 
and Hope herself has never belied her promise. Now we are 
changed. I have been inspecting my accounts ; my losses have 

26 



403 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

quadrupled my gains for the past year ; in short, Louisa, we are 
almost beggars ! What shall we do V 

* We will trust in God,' said his affectionate wife, pressing her 
lips to his forehead. 

* Oh, none of this !' replied the impatient husband ; ' there is no 
balm in your lips to heal my sorrow. It cures not my distress, 
it brightens not my prospect. We have too much of loving acts, 
while poverty stands at our door. I like not your inappropriate 
affection. As my favorite Middleton sings : 

' Is there no friendship betwixt man and wife, 
Unless they make a pigeon-house of wedlock, 
And be still billing ?' 

No, Louisa, take little Charles to his couch, and do you retire 
also. I would be alone. I will come to you soon. Leave me 
alone.' 

The wife obeyed, and retired to her apartment. Then I saw that 
the countenance of the husband settled into a look of solemn and 
calm resolve. He fastened close the door through which his wife 
and child had retired, and carefully surveying the apartment, drew 
a pistol from his bosom, and placed it on the table before him. 
His face grew pale. Desperate thoughts were struggling in his 
mind. * Yes,' he muttered, ' I might as well die as live. She 
will be happier, if she returns a widow to the roof of her revered 
parent, than she would to remain with me ; a broken merchant, 
a depressed, degraded citizen, a ruined man. Were it not bet- 
ter that I sink at once into the grave, and bury my sorrows in its 
bosom ? Oh yes ; for there the wicked cease from troubling, 
and the weary are at rest. No treacherous friends can there re- 
pay my goodness with ingratitude, or make the name which 
has been recorded for their benefit, a mockery and a by-word. 
With what countenance could I meet my astonished friends, af- 
ter the hour of three to-morrow ! I should shrink from every 
gaze ! No ! thanks to this friendly weapon, I can escape be- 
yond the frowns and curses of man. / will die .'' 

My heart knocked audibly against my ribs, as I saw the mel- 
ancholy merchant make his deadly preparations. He cocked 
the pistol ; he unbuttoned his waistcoat, and parting the bosom 
of his shirt, placed the fatal instrument agamst his heart. He 
paused a moment. ' I must write to Louisa — I must ask her for- 
giveness.' He took up his pen, and began to write : he laid it 
by as suddenly as he grasped it. 

A beam of light seemed to play across his forehead as he laid 
it down. * There is one hope,' he whispered, with a kind of 



MEPHISTOPHILES IN NEW-YORK. 403 

nervous chuckle in his throat, ' one hope to cling to. I will try- 
its promise ; I will adopt the plan it has suggested. I know it 
is desperate ; I know it is wicked ; but God forgive me ! The 
insufferable agony which tempts me — the bitter thoughts which 
madden my spirit — may they excuse me !' 

He arose, and arranging his habiliments, sought the street 
with a stealthy and hurried tread. No barrier concealed him 
from my view. I followed his course as he passed through sev- 
eral thoroughfares, until I traced him to a vile and obscure lane, 
where he paused before a dwelling far too elegant for the neigh- 
hood in which it was situated, and entered. My glance was 
close upon his foot-steps. He continued his way through a 
dusky corridor, and knocked loudly at a glass door, before which 
hung a curtain of blue silk. It opened ; and what a scene ap- 
peared ! Stretched through a long saloon, were some twelve or 
thirteen card-tables, each surrounded with victims and victors. 
Groans, curses, and laughter, were confusedly mingled together ; 
some of the multitude were pale with rage and fear ; others al- 
most frantic with joy. It seemed a blending of Paradise and 
Pandemonium. 

The merchant approached one of the tables, and obtaining a 
seat, took out his pocket-book containing a bank-note of twenty 
dollars. ' It is all on earth,' he murmured, with a sigh, ' that I 
can call my own ! If I should lose, then I myself am lost, for- 
ever : if I win, I live. God help my poor wife and child !' 

The play was rouge et noir. The merchant changed his note 
at a side table, and bet in fives. He lost. Fifteen dollars were 
swiftly swept away. The last five was staked. It won ! 

He played again and won : he went on. Note after note rus- 
tled in his hand : he redoubled his ventures, and the duplicate 
harvests still continued to come into his garner. His eye beam- 
ed, his cheek was flushed, and he laughed ever and anon with a 
convulsive joy. Thousands on thousands rolled into his posses- 
sion. His partner was a young hlood about town ; a prodigal 
of that class depicted by Thompson in his Castle of Indolence : 

'A gaudy spendthrift heir, 

All glossy, gay, enamelled all with gold, 
The silly tenant of the summer air. 
In folly lost, of nothing takes he care: 
Pimps, lawyers, stewards, harlots, flatterers vile. 
And thieving tradesmen him among them share : 
His father's ghost from limbo lake the while, 
Sees this, which more damnation doth upon him pile.' 

There seemed to be no end to the success of the merchant. 
Chance was Aw, and he soon received all his opponent's funds. 



404 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

* How much have you lost?' he inquired of the loser. 

* Oh, curse it ! — just a trifle. I had between eight and nine 
thousand dollars when I came : I had lost only a few hundreds 
when you entered. You have the rest, and my good Sir, I 
wish you joy of it. Thank the Lord, I have got enough more.' i 

' Believe me,' said the merchant, ' you shall not lose it. I 
will restore it to you, and that ere long. My success has saved 
ray life,' he whispered : ' and now to my Charles and Louisa ! 
Chance has preserved me, and I shall not be a bankrupt. I 
shall meet my demands to-morrow ! I am safe !' 

He burst from the ' HelV where he had played, and hastened 
home. That door which closed upon him did not hide him from 
my gaze. I saw him hurry to the bedside of his wife and child, 
and kneeling there, he whispered a fervent and humble prayer 

for forgiveness of his Maker. 

****** 

It was his first game — but not his last. The lapse of two 
weeks saw him crowned with independence, and his victim clan- 
destinely paid. Fortune smiled upon his sudden purchase and dis- 
posal of estates ; and when I next saw him by day, the envy of 
his fellows, and apparently the happiest of his kind, I thought, 
* How few can know like me, that but so lately his life depended 
upon the hazard of a cast !' . . . And t^^Zia/ a hazard was 
that ! Gambling is a magical stream, in which, if you but wet 
the sole of your foot, you must needs press on, until the waters 
have closed over you forever. That husband and father died a 
despairing, wretched gamester, leaving his family a prey to pov- 
erty and sorrow. 



LANGUAGE. 40$ 



LANGUAGE. 

The capabilities of our vernacular are not duly appreciated. 
Without going back to the simple strength and sublimity of the 
mater languarwn, or discussing the merits of any other tongue 
that has prevailed since the brick-layers and stone-masons of 
Babel fell into a state of strike — either for want of order, 
or for higher wages — we venture to observe that the English 
tongue is the richest in the world. Its sublimity is ' compound- 
ed from many simples,' and sources, as any one may know by 
consulting the pages of that burly and bilious philologist, Sam. 
Johnson. Latin, Greek, Saxon, German, and eke the French, 
may especially be found in the garner of its circumscription. It 
is capable of infinite diversity. The multitude of its synonyms, 
the full array of its adverbs and adjectives, render it indeed the 
best of languages. 

We have said thus much, in order to pave the way for a few 
specimens of the graceful expansion which a short phrase in 
English may be made to undergo. Refinement seems to be the 
increasing passion of the time, and language is forced to partake 
of its prevalence. Several of our contemporaries have caught 
the polishing mania, and the clothing of common thoughts in 
holiday suits, and of setting some dwarf of a phrase upon the 
stilts of embellishment, have become universal. 

We think that we were the first to give an impetus to this in- 
novation on the occidental side of the Atlantic. It is not so 
generally bruited as it should have been, either on the continent 
of America, or throughout the boundaries of Europe, or in Ispa- 
han, Jeddo, Jerusalem, or Bagdad, that we first refined that 
well-known adage of ' proceeding the entire swine' — the indi-r 
visum porculian. That stupendous conception was our own ; 
and to whomsoever may charge us therewith, we own the soft 
impeachment, looking to the public to protect our bays. 

Hereunto we append some fresh doings, of a similar kind. 
Two of the saws have exotic trimmings ; the others are indige- 
nous. We grew them : 

Original. Go to the Devil and shake yourself. 

Improved. Proceed to the Arch-enemy of Man and agitate 
your person. 

Or. Of one who squints. He looks two ways for Sunday. 

Imp. One who, by reason of the adverse disposition of his 



406 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

optics — a natal defect — is forced to scrutinize in duple direc- 
tions for the Christian Sabbath. 

Or. Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. 

Imp. Enumerate not your adolescent pullets, ere they cease 
to be oviform. 

Or. Sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. 

Imp. The culinary adornments which suffice for the female 
of the race Anser, may be relished also by the masculine adult 
of the same species. 

Or. Let well enough alone. 

Imp. Suffer a healthful sufficiency to remain in solitude. 

Or. None so deaf as them that won't hear. 

Imp. No persons are obtuse in their auricular apprehension, 
equal to those who repudiate vocal incomes by adverse inclina- 
tion. 

Or. Put a beggar on horseback, and he will ride to the devil. 

Imp. Establish a mendicant on the uppermost section of a 
charger, and he will transport himself to Apollyon. 

Or. Accidents will happen in the best of families. 

Imp. Disasters will eventuate even in households of the su- 
premest integrity. 

Or. a still sow drinks the most swill. 

Imp. * The taciturn female of the porcine genus imbibes the 
richest nutriment.' 

Or. The least said, the soonest mended. 

Imp. The minimum of an offensive remark is cobbled with 
the greatest promptitude. 

Or. 'T is an ill wind that blows nobody good. 

Imp. That gale is truly diseased, which puffeth benefactions 
to nonentity. 

Or. a stitch in time, saves nine. 

Imp. The ' first impression' of a needle on a rent obviateth a 
nine-fold introduction. 

Or. a nod 's as good as a wink, to a horse that is n't blind. 

Imp. 'An abrupt inclination of the head, is equivalent to a 
contraction of the eye, to a steed untroubled with obliquity of 
vision.' 

Or. 'T is a a wise child that knows its own father. 

Imp. That juvenile individual is indeed sage, who possesses 
authentic information with respect to the identity of his paternal 
derivative. 

Or. There's no accounting for taste. 

Imp. The propensities of the palate defy jurisdiction. 

Or. Two and two make four. 



LANGUAGE. 407 

Imp. (As per Sam. J.) The number four is a certain aggre- 
gate of units : and all numbers being the repetition of an unit — , 
which, though not a number in itself, is the parent, root, or origi- 
nal of all number — four is the denomination assigned to a cer- 
tain number of such repetitions. 

Or. Three removes are as bad as a fire. 

Imp. The triple transmission of a household, with chattels, 
from one domicil to another, is as vicious as a conflagration. 

Here we pause. For the nonce, our speculation has done its 
worst. 



408 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



FREE TRANSLATIONS. 



' Multa absurda fingunt.' 

Cambesab 



Who has not amused himself in his classic hours, in making 
free translations ? There is a kind of intoxication in it. The 
Oxford student who completed a travestie of all the books in 
Homer's Iliad, must have had a glorious time of it ; for Mel- 
esigenes was not beyond the power of ridicule, and Socrates long 
remembered the quizzing of Aristophanes. Some of those old 
and choice spirits in the Spectator — Johnson, Addison, and 
their coterie — with all their veneration for the blind Bard of 
Greece, could not refrain from showing up his occasional ' sink- 
ings in poetry.' They cite the passage where he compares a 
warrior in the midst of a desperate contest, to a jackass surround- 
ed in a corn-field, with pecuHar pleasure, as a scrap of pure 
bathos. It is Shakspeare's, and of course Nature's, truth, that 
no earthly thing, however good, is insusceptible of some gross 
admixture ; and I think the mode in which college boys murder 
the dead languages, (forgive the bull,) is, so far at least, a 
complete verification of a saying quoted in substance from one 
who, according to Ben Johnson, understood ' small Latin and 
less Greek.' 

I am getting deplorably rusty in my memory of free transla- 
tions. My brain used to be stored with them ; yet I bethink me 
now of but one. It was made by an unhewn fellow, in his 
freshman year ; and I have heard it quoted by my friend Lemuel 
Turquoise, (the finest observer of the burlesque in all my clique,) 
with an orotund fulness that would have pleased the discrimina- 
ting and subtle ear of Rush himself. Here it is : 

'Old Grimes is mortuus, that agathos old anthropos — 

Nunquam videbimus eum plus ; 
Usus est to habere an old togani, 
All ante-buttoned down!' 

Verses of this kind are arbitrary in their construction, and the 
pause or accent can rest anywhere the reader chooses to fix it. 
At the moment I record this, many other renderings come sud- 
denly to my mind ; but such reminiscences, though indescribably 



FREE TRANSLATIONS. 409 

pleasing to me, have no charm for the public. I associate them 
with the hearty, laughing faces of school companions who have 
been swept from my side by the course of circumstances and 
time ; some of whom are pursuing their destiny in other lands ; 
some dead; some on the wave, in the service of theii- country. 
How soon do our better hours and opportunities wane into things 
that were ! 

Among the free translators of small Latin scraps in modern 
times, I reckon Thomas Hood to be the very best. He is him- 
self alone. In his annual he furnishes many, and they are al- 
ways good. They generally serve as mottos for pictures. I 
recollect a few of these, and will set them down. One of his 
plates represents a female cook, ' doing' some meat in a frying- 
pan. The fat, or grease, has increased to the overflow, and the 
whole dish is in a blaze. The brawny arms of the maid are uplift- 
ed, and her countenance indicates the utmost perplexity and con- 
sternation. The motto is, ' Ignis Fat-uus /' Another sets forth 
a mad bull, with his tail curled in air, his nostrils expanded, and 
his whole port bewildered. He is surrounded by a crowd of 
gaping rustics. Motto, ' De Lunatico Inquirendo .'' In one of 
these sketches, a specimen of French is given. An English cock- 
ney is depicted riding in a private coach, on a French highway. 
He is passing a field of oats ; and the postillion, accidentally 
stretching out his whip in that direction, says to his horses, 
' Vite — vita !' — {quick; equivalent in this case to ' Go ahead !') 
* No,' says the cockney, thinking himself addressed, and the field 
the subject, ' no, them ar'nt lo'eat — them's /ioats !' 

Some odd translations have been done into French, from the 
English. One of the Parisian authors, in rendering the passage, 

— 'Out, brief candle, 

Life's but a walking shadow,' etc., 

from Shakspeare, gave it thus : 

'Sortez, sortez, vous courte chandelle!' 
Namely : 

• Get out, you short candle ." 

But I am persuaded that the French make fewer blunders 
than their neighbors across the channel. A regular John Bull, 
wishing to shut the mouth of a drunken hack-driver at Calais, 
said to him in a pompous and menacing voice : ' Tenez votre 
langue : vous etes en liqueur !' The equivalent English of these 
words, rendered as they stand, is ludicrous enough. 



410 



PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



Of all the free translations, however, that I ever met with, 
commend me to a work recently published in London, from the 
pen of one John Bellenden Ker, Esq., A. S. S., etc., entitled, 
* An Essay on the Archaiology of Popular Phrases.' Having 
been favored with this work by a transatlantic friend, I take the 
liberty of presenting a few specimens of the author's stupid in- 
genuity to the American public. He gives a large number of 
nursery ballads and common adages ; and by the most distorted 
construction, traces them either to the Anglo or Low Saxon. 
The absurdity of these translations constitutes the only claim to 
attention, preferred by this queer etymological. Nothing can be 
more laughable than his derivations, several of which I proceed 
to serve up. The first I select is the common phrase, ' Oh, the 
pride of a cobbler's dog.' Mr. Ker refers it to the Saxon : ' Hoe 
die prijckt op de hopplers doogh .'' i. e. ' Oh, how this person 
prides himself!' ' He is as poor as a church mouse.' ' Het is 
alpur als hij gJdere moes :'' i. e. ' He is reduced to be importu- 
nate for victuals.' ' He does not care two straws for her.' ' Het 
deught niet gar toe's troren vor hcBr .'' i. e. ' It is not worth while 
to grieve for her !' 

I can not refrain from giving one specimen of the Nursery 
Ballads, with Mr. Ker's original definition. 



' Cock-a-doodle-doo — 
Dame has lost her shoe : 
Master's broke his fiddle-stick, 
And don't know what to do !' 



'Gack en duijdt het t'u, 
Di'em aes lost ter s"du ; 
Mij aes daer's brok es vied t'el stick, 
End doedt nauw wet tet u !' 



The definition is : ' Dolt of a peasant ! — your life is a hell upon 
earth ; you are so foolish as to delight in hard work,' etc. 

From the quizzical parodies which this work has excited 
abroad, I subjoin the following. It is by the editor of the London 
Examiner, who, after some study of Mr. Ker's glossaries, felt 
himself aufait at his system of etymology. He gives this liberal 
interpretation of ' God save the King.' The Saxon, if it be not 
as pure, reads at at least as well as Ker's : 



' God save great George our King, 
Long live our noble King, 

God save the King ! 
Send him victorious, 
Long to reign over us, 

God save the King !' 



' Goets aef gregte Gorgcb oor Kynck ! 
Lon glyff oor nobblekin ; 

Goets aef thee king ! 
Sen dym vych toe rye oose, 
Lonkturane o vyrues, 

Goets aef theekina !' 



Definition — {free !) — 'Foolish is the idea of a government com- 
pounded of a king, an hereditary peerage, and a popular repre- 
sentative assembly ; it is foolish altogether ! Under such a state 
of things, the taxes become insupportable, and the people are be- 



FREE TRANSLATIONS. 411 

sotted by the priesthood, and live miserably under bad laws ; it 
is foolish altogether !' 

Not content with Europe as the arena of his researches, Mr. 
Ker has embraced America in his derivative enterprise. Here is a 
phrase that he has most learnedly illustrated ; one that until quite 
lately was never heard of out of the United States. If Mr. Ker's 
humbug were not absurd, it would be criminal. Strange to say, 
it has many implicit believers : 

' He wentihe whole hog' — in the sense ofhe went the whole length, took 
a deep interest in, made it his own business: '■ Hij wend t de hold hoogh:^ 
i. e. 'He turned the feehngs of a friend to the subject in question.' 

The author quotes from Mr. Clayton's speech in the United 
States Senate in support of his etymology. 

Encouraged by our writer's example, I offer one or two trans- 
lations, a la mode Ker. I take a revolutionary saying, and one 
verse of Yankee Doodle. I am not at liberty to mention the de- 
rivative language, only so far as to say, that it is a mixture of 
Mormon and Choctaw. I will merely remark, for the benefit of 
philologists, that the parlance is not extant in the schools : 

• The times that tried men's souls:' ♦ Thett ymms then' dried mens ^oels ;* 
i. e. ' The time when we thrashed our invaders and gained a republic' 



• Corn-stalks twist your hair, 
Cart-wheels go round ye ; 
Fiery dragons carry ye off, 
And mortar-pestle pound ye 



' Koern stoelks twijsdt y'er aer, 
Kar t'oeils goer un ghe ; 
Phy ried rag undts kar e oopgh. 
An dmor t'arp oestil poenndjie!'^ 



On the whole, from the evidences that I meet with daily, I am 
persuaded that free translations are on the increase. Their utihty 
may be judged of from the foregoing specimens. That they are 
amusing, admits of no doubt : but there are many who will reject 
them altogether, as things that have no moral, and as possessing 
nothing that one can go about to prove- 



412 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



AMERICAN PTYALISM 



• I JirsT humbly crave leave hereinne, to be delivered of a bouldenesse, where- 
with my pen is in travaile.' Sir Hy. Wotton's ' RELiQuia:.' 



Big words, now-a-days, are all the rage, and I flatter myself 
that I have selected a pretty tall one for this article. It stands as 
the expositor of an alarming epidemic which has long prevailed 
in our well-beloved country ; and for which the land is cursed 
by travelling cockneys, and cosmopolitan old women. Pfyalism, 
gentle reader, is ' the effusion of spittle,' as is worthily illustrated 
by that venerable lexicographer, Sam. Johnson ; the prince of 
his tribe, and the sometime lion to that jackal, Boswell. This is 
my theme ; it is the evil whereupon I design to expatiate ; and 
I can say with my motto-maker, that it is one which I have not 
undertaken out of any wanton pleasure in mine own pen ; nor 
truly without pondering with myself beforehand, what censures I 
might incur ; for I know that the object against which the lance 
of my reprobation is to be tilted, is grievously circumvested with 
the affection of habit and the sanctity of time. I mean not to be 
a sweeping opponent, but a commentator merely. To advocate 
the ptyalism of this nation would be ' a sin to man,' for an 
amendment in the custom is most imperiously demanded. 

Whether the corporeal juices are more abundant in the citizens 
of the United States than in the people of other countries, it is 
not pertinent just now to inquire. At all events, they are less 
regarded ; for we are said to be the most notoriously salivating 
nation on the face of the globe. But the custom is as old as 
time. We hear of it in the first origin of our religion. It was 
by spittle that the blind man was healed with the clay which our 
Saviour applied to his eyes ; and in many countries it has been in- 
vested with pecuUar sanctity. In Scotland, as may be learned from 
works relating to its popular superstitions, the virtue of spittle has 
long been held in high estimation by that proverbially neat and 
thrifty people. Authors have thrown much light upon this sub- 
ject. They prove that the properties of the human saliva have 
enjoyed singular notice in both sacred and profane history. 
Pliny devotes an entire chapter in describing its efBcacy among 
the ancient pagans, with whom it was esteemed an antidote to 
fascination, a preservative against contagion, a counteracting 



AMERICAN PTYALISM. 413 

influence upon poisons, and a source of strength in fisticuffs. 
Some of these uses, the moderns retain. When they fight, they^ 
spit in their hands ; and they indulge in the same process under 
the humihation of defeat. Your Irish or English servant will 
spit on an eleemosynary shilling ; for he thinks that it blesses the 
coin. In the country of the former, it is said to be an invariable 
habit among the peasant girls, whenever they fling away the 
combings of their hair. There is sometimes a dignity, or grandeur, 
and sometimes a solemnity, in the custom. I always think well of 
those ladies one meets in romances, when they exjjrcss themselves 
in that way. Who has not joined in the feeling of Rebecca and 
Ivanhoe, when the lustful templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, in- 
vades her in her tower, to compass her dishonor, and when she, 
standing on the parapet, ready to spring from that lofty height 
into the court-yard below, says to the craven knight, with a look 
of withering contempt : ' I sp^7 at thee ; I defy thee ! Thanks 
to him who reared this dizzy tower so high, I fear thee not ! 
Advance one step nearer to my person, and I will leap, to be 
crushed out of the very form of humanity, in the depth beneath !' 
The reader almost sees the scornful foam escaping from the 
curled and beautiful lip of the Jewess, and is himself inclined to 
suit his action to the thought. Our ideas of propriety are de- 
rived, to a greater extent than we are aware of, from novels ; 
and if their pages may be relied on, their heroines (being always 
encompassed by scoundrels whom they have much ado to keep 
at a proper distance) must have been spitting at their detested 
supernumerary lovers about half the time. Contempt is well 
expressed by that action, and by the word. There is innate 
disdain in the saliva itself. It leaves the haughty lip of the of- 
fended one, and lies before the contemned person — perhaps 
upon his beard — like a gage of war, as potent as the glove in 
the days of the Crusades. In his work of ' England and the 
English,' the author of Pelham alludes to one Westmacott, (who 
seems a common libeller in London,) under the name of Sneak, 
in the following expressive phrase : ' His soul rots in his profes- 
sion, and you spit when you hear his name!' Among the va- 
rious and opposing inferences derivable from the custom and the 
use of the word, one is, that saliva is inherently contemptible ; 
and if so, is it not a noble proceeding to dispossess one's self as 
much as possible of that which is unworthy ? Is this a noii 
sequitur ? 

In one of the remote islets of Scotland, spitting into the grave 
forms a part of the funeral ceremony. Relations and friends 
gather round the narrow mansion of the departed, and each one 



414 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

ejects the salivary tribute of sorrowful remembrance. ' Happy,' 
says the old adage, ' is the new grave that the rain rains on ;' 
and in the island of which I speak, perhaps the saying may be, 
' Beloved is the dust that we spit upon.' Anciently, the subject 
of Optics was illustratea only by those who possessed ample 
knowledge in relation to the qualities of saliva. The popular 
oculist was one who saw, 

——'or fancied, in his dreaming mood, 
All the diseases that the spittles know.' 

Even modern opticians, in their discussions upon the eye, have 
recommended a research of the old schoolmen's tomes, that it 
may be decided whether any ' solvent, sanative, or medicament,' 
connected with saliva, and lost to the oculists of the present day, 
was not in vogue of yore. But I do not wish to discuss the 
virtue of that which I esteem the parent of a vice. 

I look upon TOBACCO, in all its shapes and varieties, as the 
prime cause of the very extensive ptyalism which prevails in 
this nation. It is passing strange that this article ever came to 
be beloved. It is wonderful, that a weed which is in itself, in 
its original state, acrid and disagreeable, and which contains 
poison as deadly as the sting of a scorpion, should have pushed 
its way into use, until it has become a matter of traffic in all 
quarters of the world. 1 can hardly imagine how it ever spread 
its magic beyond the wigwam of the Indian, or came to mingle 
its fumes with anything but the council-smokes of the aborigines, 
in the pathless forests of the west. It has encountered and 
conquered every obstacle ; the book which James I. fulminated 
against it ; the opposition of Papal bulls, of Transylvanian edicts, 
of Persian anathemas ; and by the aid of Nicot, with Catharine 
de Medicis, (who may perhaps have ' chawed,'') and the great 
crowd of amateurs who continue to patronize it, the whole eastern 
continent glories in its use, and is loud in its j^raise. Since the 
Haytien began to draw its blue wreaths through his derivative 
pipe, as he watched the distant sea, dancing to the balmy winds 
from the palm-groves of his native land, the world has bowed to 
the Nicotian weed. From Iceland to the tropics, and from 
Jerusalem to the Pacific, it is in request. Protean in its forms, 
it intoxicates in pigtail, twist, or plug ; in cigar or snufF. In the 
latter substance, how many a lofty nostril has it pleased, how 
many old women and great men has it delighted ! It was the last 
comfort of Napoleon, when he cried ' Sauve quipeutP at Water- 
loo, and rode through bloody battalions of the wounded and 
dying, away from the victorious legions of Wel'lington. When 



AMERICAN PTYALISM. 415 

an old Irish vixen in a London police-office was charged by her 
husband, to whom she had been rebellious, in a row, with taking 
two ounces of snufFper diem, what was her answer? 'Lawful 
powers, yer Warship ! What is two ounces of blissid snuff, to a 
poor onfortinit woman, as gives suck to two childer?' It was an 
appeal that went home at once to the proboscis of the magistrate, 
and the woman was discharged. 

Much as tobacco has been lauded, snufFhas perhaps received 
a greater share of eulogy. Even the organ to whose pleasure 
it ministers has been addressed, among many others, by the 
facetious author of ' Absurdities,' as the source of his supremest 
rapture. Hear him : 

'Knows he that never took a pinch, 
Nosey, the pleasure thence which flows ? 
Knows he the titillating joy 
Which my nose knows ? 
Oh, Nose ! I am as proud of thee, 
As any mountain of its snows : 
I gaze on thee, and feel the joy 
A Roman knows!' 

But this is an episode, since snuff is not directly consociated 
with ' the effusion of spittle.' Tobacco is. Who chews, and 
smokes, and salivates not? Who ever attended a church, a 
theatre, a poHtical meeting, or any assembly, legislatures even, 
and did not see the effects of tobacco ! Who has not witnessed 
them at parties, at balls — anywhere, and everywhere? How 
many divines and statesmen have I known, the misanthropic 
corners of whose lips exhibited the stained and pursed-up 
wrinkles of tobacco ! Your student and your ' blood,' (ruminating 
bipeds, who smoke or chew,) expectorate themselves away, and 
look like old men long before they are forty. 

Yet it is the abuse, rather than the use, of tobacco, of which I 
complain. Under the rose, I have some respect myself for a 
cigar ; and I do not object to some kinds of scented snuff. It 
is pleasant to smell the airy whiffs, circling around one's contem- 
plative nose, and to enjoy the excitement of a sneeze. But 
moderation should guide us in these matters ; for ptyalism is so 
much of a habit, that in my opinion it might be abated two thirds, 
in every one of our countrymen ; and I think that many valuable 
lives would thus be lengthened. 

With regard to expectoration, I would say, that when 'tis 
done, it would be well if it were done seci-etly. I am no advo- 
cate of the English custom of salivating into the handkerchief, 
and carrying in a pocket the harvest of one's palatic department. 



416 PROSE MISCELLANIES. 

Neither do I think that we should care a tobacco-stopper what 
foreign zantippes or scribblers think of the custom, only so far 
as their strictures may seem to be just. In truth, after the false- 
hoods with which the European public has been deluged re- 
specting our manners, the mere sight of an English tourist, male 
or female, in this country, is enough to make an American citizen 
spit from sheer disgust. We mean those tourists who grumble 
when they land ; grumble their six weeks' transit through the 
republic, and then grumble themselves into a packet-cabin, and 
go home to make a grumbling book. It is not surprising that 
folk like these have seen a good deal of ptyaHsm. Every such 
raven of passage is a walking ptysmagogue, and excites the very 
discharges that are so vehemently condemned. 

There is a juste milieu in this habit, which, as a nation, we 
have not hit as yet ; though we are much nearer to it than the 
spittle-pocketing kingdom which has furnished us with so many 
peripatetic philosophers on the subject. Let a general effort be 
made to touch this happy medium. To use a pun of some lon- 
gevity, we must expectorate less, before we can expect to rate as 
a poHshed nation. I appeal to all frequenters of public places, 
whether my advice be not good. Let it be followed. Let it be 
henceforth declared no more, as it has been, that ' an American 
spits from his cradle to his grave ; at the board of his friend, at 
the feet of his mistress, at the drawing-room of his president, at 
the altar of his God : he salivates for three score years and ten ; 
and when the glands of his palate can secrete no longer, he spits 
forth his spirit, and is gathered to his fathers, to spit no more.' 

John W. Sangrado, M. D. 

Communipaw, November 22, 1834. 



END OF PROSE MISCELLANIES. 



TKB 

SPIRIT or LIFE; 

A POEM, 
PRONOUNCED BEFORE THE FRANKLIN SOCIETY 

OF 

BROWN UNIVERSITY, 

SEPTEMBER 3, 1838. 
BY WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 



" Je crois que le monde est gouveni6par une volont6 puissante et sage; mait c» 

mime monde — est-il eteruel ou cree? Y a-t-il un principe unique des choses ?" 

RoussKAVi Emih, liv. ir. 



DEDICATION. 



TO EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, ESQUIRE, M.P. 

AUTHOR OF 'Pjclham,' ' Devereux,' Eugenk Aram,' S.TC 

Mr Dear Friend : 

I DEDICATE these pages to one whose animated expressions of regard 
have long cheered, and whose kind praises have often inspired me ; to 
one, whose genius is acknowledged with ardor among all the intelligent 
classes of the American republic ; whose impressive writings are familiar 
to the general reader, from Madawasca to the Mississippi, and from On- 
tario to Florida; to one whose political liberality is admired by every well- 
read freeman in the Union, and whose influence as an author (popular in 
the full sense of the word), is undeniably stronger and more diffusive 
among the people of America, than that of almost any modern mind. 1 
inscribe to you this little work, with a hearty wish that it were worthier of 
your acceptance. You can see the excuses with which it is put forth to 
the public ; but I am sure that your friendship will appreciate my motive 
Sufficiently to pardon, in its expression, both the manner and the medium. 

That you may long continue to depict, with your own peculiar power, 
the deformity and misery of Vice, and the peaceful loveliness of Virtue, 
by clothing in attractive fiction the severe truths of life ; and that your 
love of free American principles may continue to aflbrd you the political 
influence which, as a member of the British Parliament, you now wield 
in *u body of the first gentlemen in Europe,' is the sincere desire of 

Yours, most truly, 

W. Gatlord Clark. 
Philadelphia, October, 1833. 



CORRESPONDENCE 



Brown University, September 3, 1833. 
Dear Sir: 

The Franklin Society of this Institution, through the undersigned, as 
their committee, present you their unfeigned thanks for the excellent Poem 
with which you have this day favored them, and hereby solicit a copy of 

the same for publication. 

Yours, veiT respectfully, 

E. P. Dyer 

F. W. FiCKLING. 

To Willis Gaylord Clark, Esq. 



Philadelphia, September 18, 1833. 
Gentlemen . 

In answer to your official letter of the 3d instant, on behalf of the Frank- 
lin Society of Brown University, I beg leave to obseiTe, that while I re- 
ceive with unaftected respect and pride the kind opinions of the associa- 
tion which you represent, and comply with the request for a copy of the 
poem delivered before that body, I feel bound to extenuate the defects 
Vrhich are, in all likelihood, contained in the production. The majority 
of it is the effort of a few languid summer evenings, stolen from relaxation 
and society, after a performance of the onerous duties appertaining to the 
editorship of a daily gazette ; and jhe closing portions were completed 
after my arrival in Providence, not many hours previous to their delivery. 
I do not mention these circumstances to excuse those blemishes in the 
poem which I am well aware it may probably contain ; and to apologize 
for which, I have not enough of that amabilis insania, so finely satirized in 
the Horatian line. The subject was chosen because it was wide, and ad- 
mitted of readier treatment tlian one loss general and expansive. 

"With this brief prologue, therefore, I submit the affair to the society, 
' for better or for worse ;' and remain, 

Gentlemen, with high consideration, 
Your ol)edient servant, 

W. G^TLORD Clark.. 
To E. P. Dyer and F. W. Fickling, Esqs. 



THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 



Thkrf, is a Spirit, whose reviving power 

Dwells through the changes of each earthly hour : 

Where the sere blooms of man's decline are shed, 

And sterile snows the brow of age o'erspread ; 

Or while each impulse of the heart is young, 

And the light laugh falls sweet from childhood's tongue! 

There lurks that moving spirit, bound to all — 

O'er which nor chance nor time can fling a thrall ; 

Through lengthened years its force unbroken moves, 

Guiding the hopes of earth, the cares, the loves ; 

Where'er the land outspreads, or sunshine lies, 

Pour'd on old ocean from the boundless skies ; 

In calm or storm, in light or shade it springs. 

And broods o'er nature with perpetual wings. 

Its name is Life — and glorious is its sway. 
Which seas, and worlds on worlds, and stars obey ; 
Born from the exhaustless might of God alone, 
The extended universe is but his throne ; 
In liberal measure, through the waste of years. 
Its quenchless power, or principle, appears ; 
Fadeless and unrepress'd its lustres move. 
Won from the I'ountains of Eternal Love ! 

Mysterious Life I how wide is thy domain ,' 
in natxue's scope how absolute thy reign ! 
In raovmg force thy kindling gleams appear, 
When dewy blooms bedeck the opening year ; 
When, robed in laughing guise, the Spring comes od, 
And waves her odorous garlands in the sun : 
When the soft air comes balmy from the West, 
And tenderest verdure cheers the meadow's breast : 



422 THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 

How teem the gifts of life at such an hour — 
How sighs the zephyr — how expands the flow'r! 
High from the forest's nodding tops arise 
Rich clouds of hidden fragrance through the skies — > 
Their viewless wings the abyss of ether fan, 
While dreams, exalting, fire the breast of man. 
Awakening life in every thought prevails ; 
He draws rapt inspiration from the gales : 
To the chann'd eye above, the golden sun 
Doth his perpetual journeys brightly run ; 
Around his course, in solemn pomp, repose 
Gay clouds that druik his glory as he goes ; 
He bathes the desert waste, the city's fanes ; 
He pours clear radiance on the hills and plains ; 
Till restless life, still travelling with his rays, 
O'er earth and heaven, in trembling lustre plays. 

Who, when the summer laughs in light around. 
But feels that spirit's glowing power abound ? 
Warmed from the south, the gladsome hours are shed, 
Lending new verdure to each mountain-head ; 
Luxuriant blessings crown the pleasant scene, 
And the broad landscape glows in sunny green ; 
While leaves and birds and streams their songs attune 
And, steep'd in music, smiles the rose of June ; 
Making the freighted bliss it scatters there. 
Seem like the breathings of ambrosial air ; 
While, o'er the tall old hills and vales between. 
In peerless glory, swells tlie blue serene : 
Unbounded skies ! — where life triumphant dwells. 
And light resistless from its fountain wells ; 
Where beauty unapproach'd — alone — sublime, 
Mocks at the restless change of earth and time ; 
And clothed in radiance from the Eternal's throne. 
Bends its unpillared arch from zone to zone ! 

Who that hath stood, where summer brightly lay 
On some broad city, by a spreading bay, 
And from a rural height the scene survey'd, 
While on the distant strand the billows play'd, 



THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 423 

But felt the vital spirit of the scene, 

What time the south wind stray'd through foliage green, 

And freshened from the dancing waves, went on, 

By the gay groves, and fields, and gardens won ? 

Oh, who that listens to the inspiring sound 

Which the wide Ocean wakes against his bound, 

While, like some fading hope, the distant sail 

Flits o'er the dim blue waters, in the gale ; 

When the tired sea-bird dips his wings in foam, 

And hies him to his beetling eyiy home ; 

When sun-gilt ships are parting from the strand, 

And glittering steamers by the breeze are fanned ; 

When the wide city's domes and piles aspire. 

And rivers broad seemed touch'd with golden fire — 

Save where some gliding boat their lustre breaks. 

And volumed smoke its murky tower forsakes, 

And surging in dark masses, soars to lie. 

And stain the glory of the uplifted sky ; 

Oh, who at such a scene unmoved hath stood. 

And gazed on town, and plain, and field, and flood, 

Nor feit that life's keen spirit lingered there. 

Through earth, and ocean, and the genial air? 

• Change is the life of Nature ;' and the hour 
When storm and blight reveal lone autumn's pow'r ; 
When damask leaves to swollen streams are cast. 
Borne on the funeral anthems of the blast; 
When emit with pestilence the woodlands seem. 
Yet gorgeous as a Persian poet's dream ; 
That hour the seeds of life within it bears. 
Though fraught with perished blooms and sobbing airs ; 
Though solemn companies of clouds may rest 
Along the uncheer'd and melancholy west ; 
Though there no more the enthusiast may behold 
Effulgent troops, arrayed in purple and gold ; 
Or mark the quivering lines of hght aspire, 
Where crimson shapes are bathed in living fire — 
Though Nature's withered breast no more be fair, 
Nor happy voices fluctuate in the air; 



424 THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 

Yet is there life in Autumn's sad domains — 

Life, strong and quenchless, through his kingdom reigns. 

To kindred dust the leaves and flowers return, 

Yet briefly sleep in winter's icy urn ; 

Though o'er their graves, in blended wreaths, repose 

Dim wastes of dreary and untrodden snows, 

Though the aspiring hills, rise cold and pale 

To breast tlie murmurs of the northern gale, 

Yet, when the jocund spring again comes on, 

Their trance is broken, and their slumber done ; 

Awakening Nature re-asserts her reign. 

And her kind bosom throbs with life again ! 

' 'T is thus with man. He cometh, like the flow'r, 
To feel the changes of each earthly hour ; 
To enjoy the sunshine, or endure the shade, 
By hopes deluded, or by reason sway'd; 
Yet haply, if to Virtue's path he turn. 
And feel her hallowed fires within him bum, 
He passeth calmly from that sunny mom. 
Where all the buds of youth are ♦ newly born,' 
Through varying intervals of onward years, 
Until the eve of his decline appears: 
And while the shadows round his path descend. 
As down the vale of age his footsteps tend, 
Peace o'er his bosom sheds her soft control, 
And throngs of gentlest memories charm the soul ; 
Then, weaned from earth, he turns his steadfast eye 
Beyond the grave, whose verge he falters nigh, 
Surveys the brightening regions of the blest. 
And, like a wearied pilgrim, sinks to rest. 

The just man dies not, though within the tomb 
His wasting form be laid, mid tears and gloom: 
Though many a heart beats sadly when repose 
His silvery locks in earth, like buried snows ; 
Yet love, and hope, and faith, with heavenward trust, 
Tell that his spirit sinks not in the dust : 
Above, entranced and glorious, it hath soared, 
Where all its primal freshness is restored; 



THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 4j5 

And from all siu released, and doubt, and pain, 
Renews the morning of its youth again. 

Yes ! while the mourner stands beside the bier, 
O'er a lost friend to shed the frequent tear 
To pour the tender and regretful sigh, 
And feel the heart-pulse fill the languid eye — 
Even at that hour the thoughtful wo is vain. 
Since change, not death, invokes aft'ection's pain. 
Naught but a tranquil slumberer resteth there. 
Whose spirit's plumes have swept the upper air. 
And caught the radiance borne from heaven along. 
Fraught with rich incense and immortal song; 
And passed the glittering gates which angels keep: 
Oh, wherefore for the just should mourners weep? 

And why should grief be moved for those who die 
When life is opening to the youthful eye; 
When freshening love springs buoyant in the breast, 
And hope's gay wings are fluttering undepress'd : 
Wliile like the morning dews that gem the rose. 
In the pure soul, the dreams of joy repose ; 
When on the land and wave a light is thrown, 
Which to the morn of life alone is known ; 
When cveiy scene brings gladness to the view. 
And every rapture of the heart is new ; 
Oh, who shall mourn that then the silver cord 
Is loosed, and to its home the soul restored ? 
Oh who should weep that thus, at such an hour, 
Celestial light should burst upon the flower — 
The human flower, that but began to glow 
And brighten in this changeful world below ; 
Then, still unstained, was borne, to bloom on high. 
And drink the lustre of a fadeless sky ? 

No ! let the mother, when her infant's breath 
Faints on her bosom, in the trance of death ; 
Then let her yearning heart obey the call 
Of that high God who loves and cares for all ; 



42G THK SPIRIT OF LIFE. 

Resign the untainted blossom to that shore 
Where sicknesses and bhght have power no more . 
Where poisonous mildew comes not from the air, 
To check the undying blooms and verdure there ; 
But where the gifts of life profuse are shed, 
And funeral wailings rise not o'er the dead : 
Where cherub-throngs in joy triumphant move, 
And Faith lies slumbering on the breast of Love. 

Change wears the name of death, the heart to bow, 
And bid its rising shadows cloud the brow ; 
To teach the wandering soul, with truth severe. 
That man hath no continual city here ; 
That all his hopes, unfixed on God and heaven. 
Like pure aroma to the whirlwinds given, 
Are raptures, wasted from a precious store. 
They leave the bosom to return no more. 

Could man's impressive reason bear the sway, 
And guide his footsteps through life's little day; 
Could every pulse that riots but to stain 
His soul, move calmly in reflection's reign; 
Could gentle Conscience whisper peace within, 
And from his spirit sweep the darling sin; 
Between his birth-hour and his final rest, 
What high philosophy would fire his breast ? 
Time's glittering charms would then no more delude. 
Its phantom train would all be unpursued ; 
No scars of sorrow's war the cheek would wear, 
Ploughed by corroding thoughts too deeply there; 
No gusts of passion would the brow deform, 
Or lash the kindling bosom into storm; 
But each pure wish, inspired, to heaven would soar. 
And earth's dull fevers burn tha heart no more. 

And since the changes which in time are rife. 
No real death contain, but teem with life ; 
Since blooming nature from decay can spring 
With buds, and happy birds upon the wing ; 



THE SPIRIT OF LIFE 427 

Since year to year succeeds, und all renew 

The scenes that glow'd to childhood's wondering view, 

Since lavish beauty riseth from the dust, 

Shall man's cold heart withdraw from heaven its trust? 

No ! while the unblemished sun careers on high, 

And gilds, with glorious smile, the earth and sky ; 

While tides, mysteriously-obedient, roll 

From orient Indus to the frozen pole ; 

While chaste and free above, serenely bright. 

The moon sails onward through a sea of light ; 

While verdant leaves in summer's air can play, 

Or torrents thunder midst their rainbow spray : 

Long as the unnumbered stars can flash and burn. 

Or journeying winds upon their circuits turn ; 

There shall the exhaustless life of God be found. 

And His kind love diffuse its gifts around. 

Man to his rest may fall — but wlio should mourn, 
Or plant the cypress by the marble urn ? 
In dust his wan, cold ashes may remain, 
But no dark shade of death the soul can stain ; 
Beyond destnjction's power 'tis formed to rise. 
And bide the judgment-audit in the skies. 
Then who the dirge would breathe, or pour the tear. 
Since life is strong, and death is feeble here ? 
Gorged by the past, in dreamless slumber laid, 
Rest the fond lover and the rosy maid ; 
Friends, parents, brothers, sisters, linger there, 
Shut from the sunshine and the blessed air; 
But change alone hath touched each earthly form. 
Each faded banquet of the noisome worm : 
Death o'er the ransomed spirit hath no pow'r — 
It waits the final and triumphant hour, 
When sundering cerements shall their prey release, 
Renewed and radiant, to the Realms of Peace. 

All-quenchless Life ! bright effluence from God ! 
Whose impulse fills tlie universe abroad ! 
From thee the restless heart its movement draws — 
In thee, revolving seasons find their laws ; 



428 THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 

Thine is the pulse that heaves the ocean wave, 

Or bids the evening sunhght gild the grave ; 

That paints the gorgeous skies at night or morn, 

When dawn is blushing, or when stars are born ; 

Which drives the uaquiet storm along its way, 

When broken ships are whelm'd in surge and spray ; 

While inland hills are echoing wildly-loud, 

As the mad thunders roll from cloud to cloud ; 

When giant trees, with arras uplifted high. 

Creak, as the sheeted lightnings hurtle by ; 

While lengthened swells chastise the groaning strand, 

And bid their deep-toned murmurs thrill the land ! 

Life, unsubdued, through all the world prevails ; 
Howls on the midnight waters, or in vales 
Where gentlest Summer spreads her waving grain, 
Smiles o'er the golden harvest, on the plain; 
Bathes, through the tranquil eve, the lake and stream. 
In silvery lustre, an unbroken gleam ; 
Bids the rich sunset all its splendors form, 
And braids the rainbow on the passing storm : 
These are the gifts of Life — sublime and high — 
They teach the soul its immortality ! 

Then let obedient man the lesson heed — 
Let his obsei-vant eye its precepts read ; 
On earth, and ocean, and in heaven above. 
Writ with the principle of life and love ; 
So, when the mockeries of this world shall cease, 
His spotless soul may don the robes of peace : 
Its tireless pinions shall in rapture wave, 
Far through the bended skies, above the grave ; 
Where no sad care the soaring thought can bind. 
Or vex the holy and eternal mind. 

There, through unclouded leagues of fragrant air, 
The walls of Heaven dispense their glories rare ; 
Prismatic shafts of sparkling light arise. 
Pure as the thoughts that beam from angels' eyes; 



THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 

There, glittering gates of massy pearl unfold, 

And restless lustre sti-eams from streets of gold ; 

There Life's immortal river flows abroad. 

To cheer the city of the living God ; 

And where its liquid lapse extends serene. 

By dewy pastures of undying green ; 

There, rich with healing leaves and fruits that glow, 

The trees of life their generous wealth bestow ; 

There, gentle harpers cheer the shadeless day. 

And balm and song are pour'd from every spray. 

There, too, when nature's requiem-tnimp shall sound, 
Will all the pure of earth again be found ; 
Long-sundered friends, on that unblighted shore, 
Will meet, to sorrow and to part no more ; 
But, calm'd and blessed, in reverential love, 
Through joyous bowers, and fields undimmed, will move, 
A deathless King to praise — divine and just, 
Beneath whose feet the burping stars are dust. 



429 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Several of the briefer miscellaneous poems of the author of ' The Spirit of Life' 
were bound up in the Tolume which contained that production, and will generally be 
deemed, it is believed, quite its superior. They were accompanied in the original col- 
lection by the annexed explanatory words of the writer : ' In addition to the preced- 
ing poem, the author takes the liberty of subjoining a few miscellaneous ' fugitives 
from justice.' Many of them have already been brought to trial before the public, by 
some of the high editorial judges of the country, and have escaped the ordeal with an 
aggregate of commendation, which must be attributed more to the kindness of the 
triers than to the merits of the tried. The pieces annexed arc mostly taken from 
among a collection — in part the product of leisure hours at school — and variously 
published, in the United States Literary Gazette, Buckingham's Magazine, the Lon- 
don Review, British Magazine, the Court Magazine, Bui.wer's New Monthly Maga- 
aine, and other journals of the British metropolis. After the close of Bryant's 
enterprise in the United States Literary Gazette, there was not for some years a 
Magazine of any note in the country. It was during that time, and from that cause, 
that many of the following poems were sent to literary friends abroad, and published in 
their respective periodicals.' Several well-known effusions of the author, as has already 
been stated, and as will have been seen indeed, appeared in his ' Ollapodiana' papers, 
in which connection they may be found by the reader of these pages. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



LAST PRAYER OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS- 

O Domine Deus ! spcravi in le ; 
O care mi Jesu, nunc libera me : 
In dura catena, in miserapcena, 

Desidero te ; 
Languendo, gemendo, at genuflectendo, 
Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me. I* 

It was the holy twilight hour, and clouds ia crimson pride 
Sailed through the golden firmament, in the calm evening-tide; 
The peasant's cheerful song was hushed by every hill and glen, 
The city's voice stole faintly out, and died the hum of men : 
And as night's sombre shades came down o'er day's resplendent eye, 
A faded face, from a prison cell, gazed out upon the sky; 
For to that face the glad bright sun of earth for aye had set, 
And the last time had come to mark eve's starry coronet! 

Oh, who can paint the bitter thoughts that o'er her spirit stole. 

As her pale lips gave utterance to feeling's deep control ; 

While, shadowed from life's vista back, thronged mid her falling tears 

The fantasies of early hope, dreams of departed years : 

When pleasure's light was sprinkled, and silver voices flung 

Their rich and echoing cadences her virgin hours among ; 

When there came no shadow on her brow, no tear to dim her eye. 

When there frown'd no cloud of sorrow in her being's festal sky. 

Perchance at that lone hour the thought of early visions came, 

Of the trance that touched her lip with song, at love's mysterious flame 



* These lines, so melodious in the original, and susceptible of equally melodious transla 
tion, were written by the unfortunate Mart a short time before her melancholy execution. 

28 



434 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

When she listened to the low-breathed tones of him the idol One, 
Who shone in her imagining, first ray of pleasure's sun : 
Perchance the walk in evening hours — the impassioned kiss or vow, 
The warm teai* on the kindling cheek, the smile upon the brow : 
But they came hke flowers that wither, and the light of all had fled. 
As a hue from April's pinion, o'er earth's budding bosom shed. 

And thus, as star came after star, into the boundless heaven, 
Were her deep thoughts, and eloquent, in pensive numbers given : 
They were the offerings of a heart, where grief had long held sway; 
And now the night, the hour had come, to give her feelings way: 
It was the last dim night of life ; the sun had sunk to rest. 
And the blue twilight haze had crept on the far mountain's breast; 
And thus, as in her saddened heart the tide of love grew strong, 
Pour'd her meek, quiet spirit forth, this flood of mournful song : 

'The shades of evening gather now, o'er the mj'sterious earth. 
The viewless winds are whispering, in wild, capricious mirth; 
The gentle moon hath come to shed a flood of glory round. 
That, through this soft and still repose, sleeps richly on the ground : 
And in the free, sweet gales that sweep along my prison bar. 
Seem borne the pure, deep harmonies of every kindling star: 
I see the blue streams glancing in the mild and chastened light, 
And the gem-lit, fleecy clouds, that steal along the brow of night. 

* Oh must I leave existence now, while life should be like spring — 
While Joy should cheer my pilgrimage, with sunbeams from his wing 1 
Are the songs of hope for ever flown — the syren voice which flung 
The chant of youth's warm happiness from the beguiler's tongue ? 
Shall I drink no more the melody of babbling stream or bird. 

Or the scented gales of summer, as the leaves of June are stirr'd ? 
Shall the pulse of love wax fainter, and the spirit shrink from death, 
As the bud-like thoughts that lit my heart fade in its chilling breath ? 

• I have passed the dreams of childhood, and my loves and hopes are gone. 
And I turn to Thee, Redeemer ! oh, thou blest and Holy One ! 
Though the rose of health has vanished — though the mandate hath 

been spoken. 
And one by one the golden links of life's fond chain are broken, 



l^AST PRAYER OF MARY, yUEEX OF SCOTS. 435 

Yet can my spirit turn to Thke, thou chastener ! and ciui bend 
In humble suppliance at thy throne, my father and my friend ! 
Thou, who hast crowned my youth with hope, my early days in glee, 
Give me tlie eagle's fearless wing — the dove's, to mount to Thee! 

' I lose my foolish hold on life, its passions and its tears : 

How brief the yearning extacies of its young, careless years ! 

I give my heart to earth no more, the grave may clasp me now ; 

The Avinds whose tone I loved, may play in the dark cypress bough : 

The birds, the streams are eloquent ; yet I shall pass away. 

And in the light of heaven shake off this cumbrous load of clay ; 

I shall join the lost, the loved of earth, and meet each kindred breast, 

Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' 



4c{6 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



A CONTRASTED PICTURE. 



It was the morning of a day in spring — 
The sun looked gladness from the eastern sky ; 
Birds were upon the trees and on the wing, 
And all the air was rich with melody ; 
The heaven, the calm, pure heaven, was bright on high ; 
Earth laugh'd beneath in all its fresh'ning green, 
The free blue streams sang as they wandered by, 
And many a sunny glade and flowery scene 
Gleam'd out, like thoughts of youth, life's troubled years between. 

The rose's breath upon the south wind came, 
Oft as its whisperings the young branches siirr'd, 
And flowers for which the poet hath no name ; 
While, midst the blossoms of the grove, were heard 
The restless murmurs of the humming-bird : 
Waters were dancing in the mellow light ; 
And joyous notes and many a cheerful word 
Stole on the charmed ear with such delight 
As waits on soft sweet tones of music heard at night. 

The night-dews lay in the half open'd ilower. 
Like hopes that nestle in the youthful breast ; 
And i-ufiled by the light airs of the hour, 
Awoke the pure lake from its glassy rest: 
Slow blending with the blue and distant west. 
Lay the dim woodlands, and the quiet gleam 
Of amber clouds, like islands of the blest ; 
Glorious and bright, and changing like a dream, 
And lessening fast away beneath the intenser beam. 

Songs were amid the mountains far and wide. 
Songs were upon the green slopes blooming nigh : 
While, from the springing flowers on every side, 



A CONTRASTED PICTURE. 

Upon his painted wings the buttertly 
Roamed a sweet blossom of the sunny sky ; 
The visible smile of joy was on the scene ; 
'Twas a bright vision, but too soon to die ! 
Spring may not linger in her robes of green — 
Autumn, in storm and shade, shall quench the summer sheen, 

I came again. 'Twas Autumn's stormy hour : 
The wild winds murmured in the faded wood : 
The sere leaves, rustling in the yellow bower. 
Were hurled in eddies to the moaning flood : 
Dark clouds enthrall'd the w^est ; an orb of blood, 
The red sun pierced the hazy atmosphere; 
While torrent voices broke the solitude, 
Where, straying lonely, as with steps of fear, 
I mark'd the deepening gloom which shrouds the dying year. 

The ruffled lake heav'd wildly; near the shore 
It bore the red leaves of the shaken tree — 
Shed in the violent north wind's restless roar. 
Emblems of man upon life's stormy sea ! 
Pale autumn leaves! once to the breezes free 
They waved in Spring and Summer's golden prime, 
Now, even as clouds or dew, how fast tliey flee ! 
Weak, changing like the flowers in Autumn's clime. 
As man sinks down in death, chill'd by the touch of time f 

I marked the picture : 'twas the changeful scene 
Wliich life holds up to the observant eye : 
Youth's spring, and summer, and its bowers of green, 
The streaming sunlight of its morning sky, 
And the dark clouds of death which linger by: ' 

For oft, when life is fresh and hope is strong. 
Shall early sorrow breathe the unbidden sigh, 
While age to death moves peacefully along, 
As on the singer's lip expires the finished song. 



438 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

AN INVITATION. 

"They that seek me early shall find me." 

Come while the blossoms of thy years are brightest, 

Thou youthful wanderer in a flowery maze ; 
Come, while the restless heart is bounding lightest. 

And joy's pure sunbeams tremble in thy ways: 
Come, while sweet thoughts, like summer buds unfolding. 

Waken rich feelings in the careless breast ; 
While yet thy hand the ephemeral wreath is holding — 

Come, and secure interminable rest. 

Soon will the freshness of thy days be over, ^• 

And thy free buoyancy of soul be flown; 
Pleasure will fold her wing, and friend and lover 

AVill to the embraces of the worm have gone : 
Those who now love thee will have pass'd forever— 

Their looks of kindness will be lost to thee : 
Thou wilt need balm to heal thy spirit's fever, 

As thy sick heart broods over years to be. 

Come while the morning of thy life is glowing, — 

Ere the dim phantoms thou art chasing die ; 
Ere the gay spell which earth is round thee throwing, 

Fade like the sunset of a summer sky ; 
Life hath but shadows, save a promise given, 

Which lights the future with a fadeless ray: 
Oh, touch the sceptre — win a hope in heaven — 

Come — turn thy spirit from the world away. 

Then will the crosses of this brief existence. 

Seem airy nothings to thine ardent soul : 
And shining brightly in the forward distance. 

Will of thy patient race appear the goal : 
Home of the weary ! where in peace reposing. 

The spirit lingers in unclouded bliss, 
Though o'er its dust the curtained grave is closing — 

Who would not earli/ choose a lot like this ? 



A LAMENT 



4^ 



A LAMENT. 

TitEY sin, who tell us love can die ; 

With life all other passions fly, 

All others are but vanity : 

But love is indestructible ; 

Its holy flame for ever burneth ; 

From heaven it came — to heaven retumeth ; 

Too oft on earth a troubled guest. 

At times deceived, at times oppress'd — 

It here is tried, and purified. 

And hath in heaven its perfect rest. 

SoDTHKT 

There is a voice I shall hear no more : 
There are tones whose music for me is o'er ; 
Sweet as the odors of spring were they — 
Precious and rich — but they died away : 
They came hke peace to my heart and ear — 
Never again will they miirmur here : 
They have gone, like the blush of a summer morn — 
LiKC a crimson cloud, through the sunset borne. 

There were eyes, that late were lit up for me, 

Whose kindly glance was a joy to see : 

They revealed the thoughts of a trusting hetirt, 

Untouched by sorrow — untaught by art : 

Wliose affections were fresh as a stream of spring, 

When birds in the vernal branches sing ; 

They were fill'd with love that hath passed with them. 

And my lyre is breathing their requiem. 

I remember a brow, whose serene repose 
Seemed to lend a beauty to cheeks of rose ; 
And lips I remember, whose dewy smile. 
As I mused on their eloquent power the while, 
Sent a thrill to my bosom, and blest my brain 
With raptures that never may dawn again : 
Amidst musical accents those smiles were shed — 
Alas, for the doom o( the early dead ! 



440 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Alas, for the clod that is resting now, 

On those slumbering eyes — on that faded brow ! 

Wo for the cheek that haih ceased to bloom — 

For the lips that are dumb in the noisome tomb ; 

Their melody broken, their fragrance gone — 

Their aspect cold as the Parian stone : 

Alas, for the hopes that with thee have died — 

Oh, loved-one ! would I were by thy side ! 

Yet the joj- of grief it is mine to bear : 

I hear thy voice in the twilight air ; 

Thy smile of sweetness untold I see, 

When the visions of evening are borne to mc ; 

Thy kiss on my dreaming lip is warm, 

My arm embraceth thy yielding form : 

Then I wake in a world that is sad and drear. 

To feel in my bosom — thou art not here ! 

Oh, once the summer to me was bright — 
The day, like thine eyes, wore a holy light ; 
There was bliss in existence, when thou wcrt nigh 
There was balm in the evening's rosy sigh : 
Then earth was an Eden, and thou its guest ; 
A sabbath of blessings was in my breast : 
My heart was full of a sense of love, 
Likest, of all things, to heaven above. 

Now thou art laid in that voiceless hall. 
Where my budding rai)tures have perished all ; 
In that tranquil and holy place of rest. 
Where the earth lies damp on the sinless breast : 
Thy bright locks all in the vault are hid — 
Thy brow is concealed by the coffin-lid : 
All that was lovely to me is there — 
Mournful is life, and a load to bear ! 



W A R \ I X G S . 44i 



W A R X I N G S . 

There are voices of God for the careless ear — 

A low-breathed whisper when none is near ■ 

In the silent watch of the night's calm hours. 

When the dews are at rest in tlie deep sealed flowers : 

When the wings of the zephyr are folded up, 

When the violet bendeth its azure cup ; 

'Tis a breath of reproval — a murmuring tone, 

Like music remembered, or extacies gone. 

'Tis a voice tiiat sweeps through the evening sky. 

When clouds o'er the pale moon are hurrying by ; 

While the fickle gusts, as they come and go. 

Wake the forest boughs on the mountain's brow : 

It speaks in the shadows that swiftly pass, 

In the waves, that are roused from the lake's clear glass, 

Where summer shores, in their verdant pride. 

Were pictured but late in the stainless tide. 

And that voice breaks out in the tempest's flight. 
When the wild winds sweep in their fearful might ; 
When the lightnings go forth on the hills to play — 
As they pass on their pinions of fire away ; 
While they fiercely smile through the dusky sky, 
As the thunder-peals to the'u* glance reply ; 
As the bolts leap out from the sombre cloud. 
While tlie midnight whirlwinds sing wild and loud I 

'Tis a voice which comes in the early morn. 
When die matin hymns of the birds are born ; 
It steals from tlie fold of the painted cloud — 
From the forest's draperies, sublime and proud ; 
Its tones are blent with the running stream, 
As it sweeps along, like a changeful dream, 



442 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS- 

In its light and sliade, tlirough the chequered vale, 
While tlie uplands are faiined by the viewless gale. 

Ill the t^vilight hour, when the weai-y bird 
On her nest is sleeping, that voice is heard ; 
While mist-robes are drawn o'er the green earth's bieast, 
And the sun hath gone down from the faded west ; 
In the hush of that silence — when winds are still, 
And the light wakes no smile in the quivering rill ; 
Through the wonderful depths of the purple air. 
O'er the landscape trembling — that voice is there ! 

There aie whispers of God in the cataract's roar — 
In the Sea's rude wail, on his sounding shore ; 
In the waves that melt on his azure isles, 
Where the sunny south on their verdure smiles ; 
In the oceanward Avind from the orange trees — 
In the Sabeau odors that load the breeze ; 
'Midst the incense that floats from Arabia's strand — 
That tone is there with its whispers bland. 

And it saith to the cold and the careless heart. 
How long wilt thou turn from '■the better part V 
I have called from the infinite depths of heaven, 
I have called, but no answer to me was given ; 
From many a hallowed and glorious spot, 
I have called by my Spirit — and ye would not! 
Thou art far from the haven, and tempest toss'd — 
Hear the cry of thy Pilot, or thou art lost I 



EUTHANASIA. 448 



EUTHANASIA. 

•What is man's history T Born — living — oynng. 
Leaving the still shore for the troubled wave ; 
Mid clouds and storms, o'er broken shipwrecks flying- 
And casting anchor in the silent grave.' 



Methtnss, when on the languid eye 

Life's vaiying scenes grow dina; 
When evening-shadows veil the sky, 

And Pleasure's syren hymn 
Grows fainter on the tuneless ear, 
Like echoes from another sphere. 

Or dreams of seraphim — 
It were not sad to cast away 
This dull and cumbrous load of clay 

II. 

It were not sad to feel the heart 

Grow passionless and cold; 
To feel those longings to depart. 

That cheer'd the saints of old; 
To clasp the faith which looks on high — 
Which fires the Christian's dying eye, 

And makes the curtain-fold 
That falls upon his wasting breast, 
The door that leads to endless rest. 



It were not lonely thus to lie 

On that triumphant bed. 
Till the pure spirit mounts on high, 

By white-winged seraphs led : 
Where glories earth may never know, 
O'er 'many mansions' lingering, glow, 

In peerless lustre shed; 
It were not lonely thns to soar. 
Where sin and grief can sting no more- 



444 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



And, though the way to such a goal 
Lies through the cloudy tomb, 

If on the free, unfetter'd soul 
There rest no stains of gloom ; 

How should its aspirations rise, 

Far through the blue and fretted skies, 
Up — to its final home; 

Beyond the journeyings of the sun. 

Where streams of living waters nm ! 



A SONG OF MAY. 445 



A SONG OF MAY. 

The Spring's scented buds all around me are swelling, 

There are songs in the stream, there is health in the gale ; 
A sense of delight in each bosom is dwelling, 

As float the pure day-beams o'er mountain and vale ; 
The desolate reign of Old Winter is broken. 

The verdure is fresh upon eveiy tree ; 
Of Nature's revival the charm — and a token 

Of love, oh thou Spirit of Beauty I to thee. 

The sun looketh forth from the halls of the morning, 

And flushes the clouds that begirt his career ; 
He welcomes the gladness and glory, returning 

To rest on the promise and hope of the year. 
He fills with rich light all the balm-breathing flowers. 

He mounts to the zenith, and laughs on the wave; 
He wakes into music the green forest-bowers. 

And gilds the gay plains which the broad rivers lave. 

The young bird is out on his delicate pinion — 

He timidly sails in the infinite sky ; 
A greeting to May, and her fairy dominion, 

He pours, on the west-wind's fragrant sigh : 
Around, above, there are peace and pleasure. 

The woodlands are singing, the heaven is bright ; 
The fields are unfolding their emerald treasure. 

And man's genial spirit is soaring in light. 

Alas! for my weary and care-haunted bosom! 

The spells of the spring-time arouse it no more ; 
The song in the wild-wood, the sheen of tlie blossom, 

The fresh-welling fountain, their magic is o'er ! 
When I list to the streams, when I look on the flowers, 

They tell of the Past with so mournful a tone. 
That I call up the throngs of uiy long-vanished hours, 

And sigh that their transports are over and gone. 



446 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

From the wide-spreading earth, from the hmitless heaveu, 

There have vanished an eloquent glory and gleam ; 
To my veil'd mind no more is the influence given, 

Which coloreth life with the hues of a dream : 
The bloom-purpled landscape its loveliness keepeth — 

I deem that a light as of old gilds the wave ; 
But the eye of my spirit in heaviness sleepeth, 

Or sees but my youth, and the visions it gave. 

Yet it is not that age on my years hath descended, 

'Tis not that its snow-wreaths encircle my brow ; 
But the newness and sweetness of Being are ended, 

I feel not their love-kindiing witcherj' now: 
The shadows of deatli o'er my path have been sweeping ; 

There are those who have loved me, debarred from the day ; 
The green turf is bright where in peace they are sleeping, 

And on wings of remembrance, my soul is away. 

It is shut to the glow of this present existence. 

It hears, from the Past, a funei-al strain ; 
And it eagerly turns to the high-seeming distance. 

Where the last blooms of earth will be garnered again ; 
Where no mildew the soft damask-rose cheek shall nourish, 

Where Grief bears no longer the poisonous sting ; 
Where pitiless Death no dark sceptre can flourish. 

Or stain with his blight the luxuriant spring. 

It is thus that the hopes which to others are given, 

Fall cold on my heart in this rich month of May; 
I hear the clear anthems that ring through the heaven, 

I drink the bland airs that enliven the day; 
And if gentle Nature, her festival keeping, 

Delights not my bosom, ah ! do not condemn ; 
O'er the lost and the lovely my spirit is weeping. 

For my heart's fondest raptures are buried with them. 



A PLACE OF REST. 447 

A PLACE OF REST. 

' AllI Ios impios cesaron del tumulto ; y alii rcposaron los de fuerzas cansadas.' 

Weep not, thou heavenward pilgrun here, around whose toilsome way 
The gloom of many a care is thrown, where'er thy feet may stray ; 
1 Within whose heart some tender pulse must echo unto pain, 
When tried by this relentless world, where eveiy dream is vain ; 
Weep not, though o'er the living glow of Pleasure's brightest wreath, 
Fate's swift and frequent tempests leave the cloudy stain of death : 
For endless raptures shall be thine, in mansions of the blest. 
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 

Thou must bend unto the Chastener here, and see the deeply lov'd, 
The pure and beautiful of earth, by early death removed ; 
Thou must mark on many a blighted cheek, the hectic mildew cling, 
Thou must bend beneath Time's shadowy frown, when snows are on 

his wing, 
Till the peace which passeth knowledge is garnered in thy soul, 
Till the silver cord is broken, and crush'd the golden bowl; 
Till the bright and glorious streets of heaven are by thy feet imprest. 
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 

How many flowers will rise and bloom, a flood of s'^eets to pour 
Across the mazes of thy way, that earth cannot restore ! 
How many fond eyes, full of love, will in the grave He hid — 
How will the dark and heavy pall press on each folded lid! 
Thou must pile the grave's remorseless clod on many a pallid brow, 
And lift the serenade of death, beneath the cypress bough : 
Till with a pale and deluged cheek, and with a yearning breast, 
Thou wilt long for pinions of a dove, to soar and be at rest. 

Yet it is but for a season — and thy trials all are past, 

And then! upon the empyreal air thy spirit-wings are cast; 

Then the bonds of earth will sunder, and thine ear will drink the song 

That floats the vernal pastures and crystal waves along : 

Thou wilt join the lost and lovely that have gone before to God, 

In a glad ' continual city,' by the earth's redeemed ones trod ; 

Where each angel-plume is folded o'er a peaceful brow and breast. 

Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 



448 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE SIGNS OF GOD. 

I mark'd the Spring as she pass'd along, 

With her eye of Hght, and her lip of song ; 

While she stole in peace o'er the green earth's breast, 

While the streams sprang oat from their icy rest : 

The buds bent low to the breeze's sigh, 

And their breath went forth in the scented sky ; 

When the fields look'd fresh in their sweet repose, 

And the young dews slept on the new-born rose. 

The scene was changed. It was Autumn's hour : 
A frost had discolor'd the summer bower ; 
The blast wailed sad mid the withcr'd leaves, 
The reaper stood musing by gather'd sheaves ; 
The mellow pomp of the rainbow woods 
Was stirr'd by the sound of the rising floods ; 
And I knew by the cloud, by the wild wind's strain, 
That Winter drew near with his storms again ! 

I stood by the ocean; its waters rolled 

In their changeful beauty of sapphire and gold ; 

And day looked down with its radiant smiles. 

Where the blue waves danced round a thousand isles : 

The ships went forth on the trackless seas. 

Their white wings play'd in the joyous breeze ; 

Their prows rushed on mid the parted foam, 

While the wanderer was wrapp'd in a dream of home ! 

The mountain arose with its lofty brow. 
While its shadow was sleeping in vales below ; 
The mist like a garland of glory lay. 
Where its proud heights soar'd in the air away ; 
The eagle was there on his tireless wing, 
And his shriek went up like an offering : 
And he seem'd, in his sunward flight, to raise 
A chant of thanksgiving — a hymn of praise ! 



THE SIGNS OF GOD. 449 

I look'd on the arch of tlie midnight skiea, 

With its blue and unseaichable mysteries : ' 

The moon, mid an eloquent multitude 

Of unnumber'd stars, her career pursued : 

A chai-m of sleep on the city fell, 

All sounds lay hush'd in that brooding spell ; 

By babbling brooks were the buds at rest, 

And the wild-bird dream'd on his downy nest. 

I stood where the deepening tempest pass'd. 

The strong trees groan'd in the sounding blast ; 

The murmuring deep with its >vrecks roll'd on, 

The clouds o'ershadow'd the mighty sun ; 

The low reeds bent by the streamlet's side, 

And Iiills to the thunder-peal replied ; 

The lightning burst forth on its fearful way, " 

While the heavens were lit in its red aiTay ! 

And hath man the power, with his pride and his skill, 

To arouse all nature with storms at will ? 

Hath he power to color the summer-cloud — 

To allay the tempest when hills are bow'd ? 

Can he waken the Spring with her festal wreath ? 

Can the sun grow dim by his lightest breath ? 

Will he come again when death's vale is trod ? 

Who then shall dare nturnrur ' There is no God." 

29 



4|50 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

MEMORY. 

'Tis sweet to remember ! I would not forego 

The charm which tlie past o'er the present can throw. 

For all the gay visions that Fancy may weave 

In her web of illusion, that shines to deceive. 

We know not the future — the past we have felt — 

Its cherish'd enjoyments the bosom can melt ; 

Its raptures anew o'er our pulses may roll, 

When thoughts of the morrow fall cold on the soul. 

'Tis sweet to remember! When storms are abroad, 
To see in the rainbow the promise of God : 
The day may be darken'd, but far in the west, 
In vermilion and gold, sinks the sun to his rest ; 
With smiles like the morning he passeth away : 
Thus the beams of delight on the spirit can play, 
When in calm reminiscence we gather the flowers 
Which love scatter'd round us in happier hours. 

'Tis sweet to remember! When friends are unkind, 

When their coldness and carelessness shadow the mind ; 

Then, to draw back the veil which envelopes a land 

Where delectable prospects in beauty expand; 

To smell the green fields, the fresh waters to hear 

Whose once fcuiy music enchanted the ear ; 

To drink in the smiles that delighted us then, 

To list the fond voices of childhood again; 

O, this the sad heart, like a reed that is bruised. 

Binds up, when the banquet of hope is refused. 

'Tis sweet to remember ! And naught can destroy 

The balm-breathing comfort, the glory, the joy. 

Which spring from that fountain to gladden our way, 

When the changeful and faithless desert or betray. 

I would not forget! though my thoughts should be dark, 

O'er the ocean of life I look back from my bark, 

And I see the lost Eden, where once I was blest, 

A type and a promise of heavenly rest. 



ON THK DEATH OF DR. BEDELL. 451 



ON THE DEATH OF DR. BEDELL. 

He has gone to a mansion of rest, 

From a region of sorrow and pain , 
To tlie glorious Land of the Blest,' 

Where he never can suffer again: 
The pangs of affliction and sickness are o'er — 
The cloud on his spirit will darken no more ! 

He has gone, like the life-waking sun, 

Descending the radiant sky; 
Ere the stars have their shining begun, 

And are hid by the day-beams on high ; 
The night could not rest on the wings of his soul, 
Nor the shadows of earth their uprising control. 

The watchman is missed from the wall. 
Where his warnings so often have rung; 

No more the affectionate call, 

Or remonstrance, will melt from his tongue; 

There is dust on his lip, and the shroud on his breast. 

And the deep seal of peace on his eyelid is prest. 

How oft, when the sanctified air 

Round the altar with music was filled, 
Have the words of his eloquent prayer 

Gone forth, like rich incense distilled ; 
Like the breath of Spring roses ascending the skies, 
To God, an acceptable sacrifice. 

His heart was a fountain of love — 

It stirred in the light of his mind, 
Whose glory was caught from above. 

Where the pearl of great price was enshrined ; 
He taught the dark spirit to look to its ray, 
And to feel its warm glow in life's gloomiest day. 



452 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

He knew that our pilgrimage here 
Was a dream : he remembered as dust 

The throngs that assembled to hear, 
And bade them in heaven to trust. 

And armed with persuasion, and pity, and prayer, 

He shunned not the counsel of God to declare. 

How oft like the heart-moving Paul, 

Did he beckon with wavering hand. 
Till silence around him would fall. 

Then, echo his Saviour's command; 
Till his magical accents the hearer received. 
Their soberness treasured, and hearing, believed. 

Who mourns that his garland is won, 

That the crown on his forehead is bright? 

That his trials and labors are done. 
That his spirit rejoices in light? 

Who weeps that our loss is his infinite gain, 

Where Death may not enter, and Sin cannot stain? 

He walks in the smile of his God, 

And looks o'er those realms of the sky, 

Where Mortality's foot never trod, 
Unseen by Mortality's eye : 

Where calm by green pastures, and dwellings of gold. 

The waters of hfe all their splendor unfold. 

And he sees in the shadowless air, 

That lofty and beautiful tree. 
Whose blossoms and fruits blooming fair. 

Are spread for the ransomed to see ; 
He hears the glad harpers that linger beneath. 
And feels not the fear of corruption or death. 

Oh, leave him to rest with his God, 

To join in that music benign 
Which swells o'er his blessed abode. 

Where eveiy sight is divine, 
Where flowers immortal with lustre are fed. 
From the source of all glorj' unceasingly shed! 



BOOTS. 453 



BOOTS: 

A 8LIPSH0DICAL LYRIC. 

The watch has brawl'd * elevin,' and the moon 

Walks tlirough the evening heaven like a queen. 

Raining soft influences on lovers' minds, 

While I, with fragrant and serene cigar 

Prest satisfactorily betwixt my lips, 

Am lounging iu tliat Traveller's Paradise, 

Hight bar-room in the vulgate, looking round, 

With honest speculation in mine eye 

In quest of food for thought. By Jove, 'tis here ! 

I have't : in yonder huge and gloomy pile 

Of travellers' boots, is inspiration hid. 

Come, bustle, honest Muse, and help me sing, 

In fanciful disportings on the theme, 

Till from this scented tube departs the fire. 

And all its ashes slumber on my Ij^re. 

Time was, when boots were not ; when graceful feet 

Of men and women, unrestricted, prest 

Their mother earth denuded. Then, suddenly, 

The Greek and Roman sandal came in vogue : 

August Athena's streets, to soles of cork. 

Trod by philosophers and stoics — Jews, * 

Cretes and Arabians — echoed as they trode ; 

And e'en the solemn groves of Academe 

Beheld the feet that bore a master mind 

'Neath Plato's lofty and impressive brow. 

Press the gay sandal on the olive leaves, 

Which autumn winds had shaken to the ground. 

In Rome, the tribune, lictor, senator. 

Proconsul, headsman, and centurion. 

The graceful sandal wore. Apostles, too, 

Did patronize the article. The light 

Which burst on Peter's dungeon, as he lay 

Hedged in by soldiers at the midnight hour, 



454 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Was scattered from an angel's odorous wing, 

And on the prisoner's chains and sandals streamed ; 

The first fell off — the latter he did don, 

And walked abroad in freedom. And in sooth, 

Where'er the Greek or Roman power had sway, 

The sandal, with its dainty tie, became 

The fashionable thing. 

At last boots came ; 



But how, or when, it boots not now to tell, 

Save that they did advene ; and through all time 

Since their first origin, have kept their state, 

Circling the calves of youth, and the slim shanks 

Of weak and trembling age. Of various name, 

Their titles I invoke not — for I know 

Their number numberless ; nor eke of style. 

Of Wellington, SuwaiTow, tasselled, laced, 

Civil, or military; seven-leagued, 

Or Chinese kinds, diminished, have I time 

To dwell on at this present, nor need tell 

How since their date, their fabricators swarm. 

St. Crispin's followers are every where : 

In France, the cordonnier ; in England, named 

Knights of the enwaxed end. The race is large, 

And keep their azure Mondays — festivals 

Of old renown — with wassail and with song. 

My present business doth not lie with these. 

But rather to discourse, as in me lies, 

About this pile of boots before mine eyes. 

It seems to rise, as if its apex strove 

To reach that constellation, Bootes y'clept, 

To which Arctiirus clings. But I demand 

My fancy from the stars, to help me here. 

There stands a scurvy pair, with tops of red. 
Sore wasted at the heel, and slim at toe. 
The straps are broken; and the owner's mind 
And disposition, thus to me exposed. 
Are clear, as if I knew hira. He's a young 
And hair-brained biped, has a sprawling foot. 



BOOTS. ^5 

But fain would be 'genteel,' and so has cased 
His pedal adjuncts in a naiTow space, , 

By much too small for comfort. When he draws 
Those boots upon his legs at morn, he chafes, 

And stamps the floor, and vents the spiteful 'd n!' 

Because they will not on. When in the street, 

He hath a rapid gait, and stalks abroad, 

On politics or business, with an air. 

As if a nation's cares were on his mind, 

Heavy as Atlas' load. Be sure, that man 

Loves, eats, and drinks, and all his acts performs, 

In the Cambyses' vein. 

Adjacent riseth, with the look of eld, 

A pair o{ Jair-lops ; and to Fancy's eye. 

Their owner stands beside them. He is one 

Now near the turn of sixty, and his hair 

Is powdered, white as snow-wreaths ; and his cane 

Is headed o'er with gold. Whene'er he treads, 

The spotless dust on broadcloth collar falls; 

And as he walks the street, full many a hat 

Is touched to do him reverence. At his board 

The choicest wines are found, that, quick and warm, 

Ascend them to the brain. He readeth loud 

The liturgy o' Sundays — while the priest 

Whenas he glanceth tow'rd his cushioned pew, 

Bethinks him of that layman's sumptuous fare. 

I like not that next pair — a clumsy mass 

Of ill-conditioned leather. To a boor, 

A walking porker, do I quickly trace 

Their certain ownership. What sprawling heels ! 

And holes are cut anigh the spreading toes, 

As if the ponderous feet in that wide space 

Had still been 'cabined, cribbed,' and wanted room; 

Or else, that doleful crops of pedal maize, 

Called by the vulgar corns, had flourished there 

I see the wearer plainly. Large of form, 

He moves abroad like stern Rhinoceros 

Or Behemoth in the ocean ; or, to rise 



456 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

In metaphor, like old Sam. Johnson's form 

Wending along Cheapside. In public haunts 

He of his self-deportment takes no heed, 

And spitteth evermore. His lips are scaled 

And juicy, like wind-beparched mouth 

Of ichthyophagous Kamschatkadale ; and oft 

With three sheets in the wind, in upper tier 

Midst mirthful Cyprians, he puts his feet 

Over the box's front, and leaning back. 

Guffaws and swears, like privateer at see, 

Until the pitlings from beneath, exclaim, 

* Boots !' ' Trollope !' and he straightway draws them in. 



My fragrant tube is out — and objects swim 
Like coming dreams before ray drowsy eyes ; 
Yet one more pair of boots, ere I retire, 
I fain, in thoughtful mood, would scrutinize, 
A dapper pair, yet gaudy not, but neat, 
As if they needed neither brush nor shine. 
For marks of both they bear. He who inserts 
His understanding in them, comes to town 
A merchant, trafficking and getting gain : 
He hath a wife and pleasant babes at home. 
To whom the squeak of those familiar soles 
Is like to heavenly music. That wife delights, 
What time she sweetly ' plies her evening care,* 
To hear that squeak, and see the infant smile. 
Tilted on parent knee. He lives and trades 
In a fair village, ' throned by the West,' 
Embowered in trees, and reached by rural roads, 
All variously diverging, where in throngs. 
The wealthy farmers come. He leads the choir 
At church, and sets the quaint, old-fashioned tune- 
The pitch-pipe blows, and is, in all respects, 
The magnate of the village. 



My subjects multiply — but to my gaze. 
Half dimmed with sleep, fantastic boots arise, 



BOOTS. 457 



And turn to shapes, and menace me with fear 
Of kicks and damage, if I publish them. 
I shrink from such a penaUy. Now dreams, 
And shades, and forms, and fluttering entities, 
Surround my brain so fast, that I opine 
My wakefulness is doubtful. Yea it is — 
And all my pictures do themselves resolve 
To mere oblivion. 



45S AH S C E L, L A X E O U .S POEMS. 



PRAYER. 

When on the sad and yearning heart 

The clouds of early sorrow fall, 
Oh ! what shall bid their gloom depart, 

And lift the spirit from their thrall ? 
When 'neath the foldings of the pall 

The lost and beautiful are laid, 
Oh, who shall answer to the call 

By watchful love in anguish made ? 

When from our daily paths, like flowers. 

Our kindred wither one by one. 
Ah ! what shall gild the weary hours, 

Or bring again the unshadow'd sun 
His bright and golden course to run ? 

To chase the clouds that round him rise-" 
Recal again each lustre gone. 

And bathe in light the uplifted skies ? 

When, with a shadow o'er them flung. 

Appear the sere autumnal trees; 
And every blast their boughs among 

Awakens mournful images; 
What, on the lapse of hours like these, 

Can earth, with all its pliantoms, fling. 
When Hope hath ceased her melodies, 

And folded up her rainbow-wing ? 

Js it not sweet, when song and dream 

Have pass'd, like sunset's sky of fire, 
When Love's false pinion sheds no gleam 

O'er Pleasure's crushed and tuneless lyie, 
To raise with purified desire 

The prayer, in earnest suppliance given, 
Which lifts the immortal spirit higher, 

And antedates the joy of Heaven ? 



THE H E X E N ZEE. 459 



THE H E X E N ZEE.* 

' How gUmily sownes yon diigy sonije 1 

Niglitravens flappe the wing ; 
Wlial bell doth slowly toll ilingdong? 

The psalms of death who sing .' 
Look up, look up I an aiiy new 

In roundel daunces reele : 
The moon is bright, and blue the night — 

Mays't soo them dimly wheele.' — Burger. 



'TwAS a sunset hour, and the waters play'd 

Like hving light on the golden sand : 
The dark green trees by the gale were .sway'd 

As tlieir wings swept over the quiet land : 
And as those wavelets kissed the shore 

With a gush of delicate melody, 
They seemed in a traveller's ear to pour 

This marvellous tale of the He.\en Zee: 

II. 

•'Tis a haunted place where thou art now, 

And when the west hath lost the sun, 
And silvery moon-beams waver slow, 

Where here the chasing billows run ; 
When fairy mists like spu-its throng 

About this undulating tide, 
Then sweep the witches' trains along. 

And charm the air whereon they ride. 

III. 
♦And, as between the waning moon 

And Brocken's height their forms are seen, 
While midnight's melancholy noon 

Extends its thoughtful reign serene. 



♦Ths Hexen Zee, or Witches' Lake, is described by modern tr.ivellers in Germany aa ore of 
the neighboring wonders of the Brocken mountain. It is not wide, but, according to tradi- 
Uoi^ nnfathomably deep. 



460 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Their rustling folds are heard above, 

The branches groan in every tree ; 
Till on the lake these spectres move, 

And sing this song of the Hexen Zee :' 

IV. 

• Our boat is strong, its oars are good, 

Of charnel bones its ribs are made ; 
From coffins old we carved the wood. 

Beneath the gloomy cypress shade; 
An ignis-fatuus lights the prow. 

It is a felon's blood-shot e'e, 
And it shineth forth from his skeleton brow, 

To light our way o'er the Hexen Zee. 

V. 

• There's a scream of dreaming birds afar, 

And a hollow blast in the old Hartz wood : 
Our course was marked by the evening star. 

By the wakeful eagle's glance pursued : 
The tree-toad moaned on the mossy limb. 

And plunged in the pool 'neath the dark yew-tree, 
But what caie we for ' the likes of him,' 

While we sing and sail on the Hexen Zee ? 

VI. 

• "We have come over forest, and glen, and moor, 

We have ivy leaves from the castle wall ; 
We roved by the huts of the sleeping poor, 

And we heard their faithful watch-dogs call ; 
Over cities and hamlets in haste we swept — 

Over gardens and turrets — o'er hill and lea; 
Our race now pauseth, our pledge we have kept, 

And together we sail on the Hexen Zee. 

VII. 

• There's a vapor of gray, and a crimson hue, 

In the wake of our bark as we haste along; 
The sails are clothed in a flame of blue, 

And our voices are hoarse with this elfin song: 



THE HEXEN ZEE. 4G1 

The finny tribes as they cross our wake, 

A-floating in lifeless throngs we see ; 
To Hecate an offering thus we make, 

Who is fond of fish from the Hcxen Zee. 

VIII. 

* Look to the east ! there the dawn is red, 

Through the cedar branches it 'gins to glow; 
Our song must be ended — our spell is dead, 

Away to our cloudy homes we go : 
The charm is finished ; the distant chime 

Of bells are echoing one — two — three ; 
We will mount the blast and depart in time, 

Afar from the haunted Hexen Zee.' 



462 M I S C E I- 1: A N E O U S POEMS 



ELEGIAC STANZAS. 

Thou ;trt laid to rest in the spring-time lioiirs, 

Fii the fresluiess oi" early feehug ; 
While the dew yet lies on the new-born flowers, 

And winds through the wood-paths are stealing ; 
While yet life was gay to thine ardent eye, 

While its rich hopes filled thy bosom ; 
While each dream was pure ns the upper sky, 

And sweet as the opening blossom : 
But thy promise of being, which shone so fair, 
Hath passed like a summer cloud in air ; 
Thy bosom is cold, Avhich with love w^as warm, 
And the grave embraces thy gentle form. 

Thou art slumbering now in a voiceless cell. 

While Nature her garland is wreathing ; 
While the earth seems touched with a radiant spell, 

And the air of delight is breathing ; 
While the day looks down with a mellow beam. 

Where the roses in light are blushing : 
While the young leaves dance with a fitful gleam, 

And the stream into song is gushing; 
While bright wings play in the golden sun, 
The tomb hath caressed thee, thou faded one ! 
The clod lies cold on that settled brow, 
Which was beaming with pleasure and youth but now. 

Should we mourn that Death's Angel, on dusky wing. 

O'er thy flowery path has driven ? 
That he crushed the buds of thy sunny spring — 

That thy spirit is borne to heaven ? 
How soon will the visions of earth grow dim — 

How soon v/ill its hopes be faded; 
And the heart that hath leaped to the syren's bymn, 

With sadness and gloom be o'ersliaded ! 
The feelings are fresh but a little while ; 
AVe can bask but an hour in affection's smile. 



ELEGIAC STANZAS. 463 

Ere the friend and tlie lover liavc passed away — 
Ere the antliem is sung o'er their wasting clay ? 

Then take thy rest in lliiit shadowy hall, 

In thy mournful shroud reposing ; 
There is no cloud on the soul to fall, 

No dust o'er its light is closing : 
It will shine in glory when time is o'er, 

When each phantom of earth shall wither; 
When the friends who deplore thee shall sigh no more, 

And lie down in the dust together: 
Though sad winds wail in the cypress bough, 
Thou art resting untroubled and calmly now : 
With a seal of sleep on thy folded eye. 
While thy spirit is glad in the courts on high. 



464 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



LOVE'S RIVAL. 

' TrevylyaN drew back, and without another word, hurried away ; he returned to the town , 
besought, with niothodical cahnness, the owner of a piece of ground on which Gertrijdk had 
wished to be buried. He purchased it, and tliat very night he sought the p:iest of a neighbor- 
ing church, and directed it should be consecrated according to the due rite and ceremonial. 

The priest, an aged and pious man, was struck by the request, and the air of him who 
made it. 

' ' Shall it be done forthwith, Sir V said he, hesitating. ' Forthwitli.' answered Trevyltah 
with a calm smile ; ' a bridegroom, you know, is naturally impatient.' ' 

TiLGRIMS 07 THE RulNT 

Oh, thou that lovest ! do not deem thou hast no rival nigh, 

To interrupt thy visions, or cloud thy golden sky ; 

And though Hope's syren voice beguile, believe not all her song, 

Nor deem the joys enduring that to the lay belong. 

Thou hast a rival, lover, however blest thou art, 

How dear soe'er the object be, that kindles up thy heart ; 

There may be bloom upon her cheek, hght on her forehead fair, 

And balm upon her rich red lip, as sweet as roses are ; 

And kindness in her lustrous eyes on thee alone bestowed, 

The stars that guide thj' pilgrimage on life's uncertain road; 

It may appear that all in all, thou art alone to her, 

And yet, thou hast a rival, deluded wor.shipper ! 

Yes, though the kisses from her lips, when they to thine are prest, 
Are like the fragrant winds of Spring that wander from the West : 
Though that voice is kindest to thine ear, and though that tender eye 
Is brighter when thy step is heard, and when thy form is nigh ; 
Though every glance be full of love, yet fate will bid thee own 
Thou hast a busy rival, thou idolizing one ! 
A rival, hoiTible and grun, yet wooing unconfined. 
Whom tears nor prayers can overcome, nor exorcism bind. 

He walks a spectre by her side, impalpable as Night — 
He wafts to her the fever-dream, and checks her young delight ; 
And though unseen by mortal eye, and clothed in vapors dim, 
He yet will win her to his arms, to sleep in peace with him : 
He will fold her, unresisting, to his lone and gloomy breast. 
And curtains, dark as Midian's land, draw round her place of rest ; 
And torn from thy caressing arms, fond lover! she will be 
Within a narrow mansion, enclosed aAvay from thee. 



love's r I V a i< . 465 

Death is that rival, lover I and soon or lute will rciul 

From thy embrace his victim, thy fond one, and thy friend ! 

And when he knocketh at thy door, thou canst not say hira nay — 

He will rob thee of th}- treasure, and bear it hence away. 

Then love with fear and trembling, the idol of tliy soul — 

For life's bright cord is feeble, and frail its golden bowl : 

And let the cloudless eye of faith the hour of rai)ture see, 

When ' raised in incorruption' ye both at la:<it may be ! 

30 



466 MISCELLA^"EOUS rOEMS. 



OCTOBER. 

Solemn, yet beau(iful to view, 

Month of my heart ! thou dawnest liere, 
With sad and faded leaves to strew 

The Summer's melancholy bier. 
I'hc moaning of thy winds I hear, 

As the red sunset dies afar, 
And bars of purple clouds appear, 

Obscuring every western star. 

Thou solemn mouth ! I hear thy voice, 

It tells my soul of other days, 
When but to live was to rejoice, 

When earth was lovely to my gaze! 
Oh, visions bright — oh, blessed hours. 

Where are their living raptures now ? 
1 ask my spirit's wearied powers — 

I ask my pale and fevered brow ! 

I look to Nature, and behold 

My life's dim emblems, rustling round, 
In hues of crimson and of gold — 

The year's dead honors on the ground : 
And sighing with the winds, 1 feel, 

While their low j)inions nuirmur by, 
IIow much their SAveeping tones reveal 

Of life and human destiny. 

Whcu Spring's delightsome moments shone, 

They came in zephyrs from the West; 
They bore the wood-lark's melting tone. 

They stirred the blue lake's glassy breast. 
Though Sunnner, fainting in the heat, 

They lingered in the I'orest shade ; 
But changed and strengthened now, they beat 

In slorin, o'er mountain, glen and glade. 



OCTOBER. 4G7 

How like those transports ot" the breast 

When life is fresh and joy is new ; 
Soft as tlie halcyon's downy nest, '' 

And transient all as they arc true I 
They stir the leave in that l)right wreaths. 

Which Hope about her forehead twines, 
Till Grief's hot sighs around it breathe, 

Then Pleasure's lip its smile resigns. 

Alas, for Time, and Death, and care. 

What gloom about our way ihey fling ! 
Like clouds in Autumn's gusty air. 

The burial-pageant of the Spring. ^ 

The dreams that each successive year 

Seemed bathed in hues of brighter jnide, 
At last like withered leaves appear, 

And sleep in darkness, side by side. 



468 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



H Y 31 N 

rOH THE EIGHTH ANNIVFKSARY OF THE AMERICAN SUNDAT SCHOOL DiaOIT. 

We have met in peace together, 

In this house of God again : 
Constant friends have led us liither, 

Here to chaunt the solemn strain : 
Here to breathe onr adoration, 

While the balmy breeze of spring. 
Like the Spirit of Salvation, 

Comes with gladness on its wing ! 

And, while nature glows Aviih beauty, 

While the fields are rich in flowers. 
Shall our hearts neglect their duty, 

Shall our souls abuse their powers ? 
Shall not all our hopes ascending. 

Point us to a home above, 
Where, in glory never ending, 

He who made us smiles in love? 

There no autiimn-tonipests gather : 

There no friends lament the dead 
And on fields that never wither, 

Fadeless rays of light are shed : 
There with bright immortal roses. 

Angels wreatli their harps of gold, 
And each ransom'd soul reposes 

'3Iidst a scene of bliss untold. 

We have met, and time is flying, 

We shall part — and still his wing, 
Sweeping o'er the dead and dying. 

Will the changeful seasons bring ; 
Let us, while our hearts are lightest. 

In onr fresh and early years, 
Turn to Him whose smile is brightest, 

And whose grace will calm our fears. 



HYMN. 469 

He will aid ixs, thongli existence 

With its sorrows sting the breast ; • 

Gleaming in the onward distance, 

Faith will make the Laud of Rest ; 
There, 'mid day beams round him playing, 

We our Father's face shall see, 
And shall hear Him gently saying, 
'Little children, come to me.' 



470 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



YESTERDAY. 

And where are noio thy sunny hours, 

Fond man, which shone but yesterday 7 
Perchance thy path was rich with flowers, 

That ghtteretl in thy joyous Wiiy ! 
Perchance the Day's pure eye of light 

Was one interminable smile; 
And visions, eloquent and bright, 

Stirred thy rapt poul with bliss the while. 

And where are they ? — the swelling tide 

Of onward and resistless time 
Is strewn with wrecks of baffled pride. 

Conceptions high, and hopes sublime ; 
Dreams, that have shed upon the earth 

The gladdening hues of Paradise ; 
Their charm is flown ; hushed is their mirth, 

And all their kindling ecstacies ! 

It may be that thy heart was sad 

And wrapt in sorrows yesterday ; 
Perchance the scenes that once could glad 

Thy spirit, passed like spring away ; 
That on the waste of years, was seen 

Naught that might cheer thy gloomy breast. 
No sunny spot, of vernal green, 

On which the thoughtful eye could rest. 

What recks it now, that then a cloud 

Was dimly brooding o'er thy head ; 
That to the tempest thou hast bow'd, 

When Joy's ephemeral beams had fled ? 
That day hath gone — its care is o'er ; 

Its shadows all have passed away ; 
Time's wave hath murmured by that shore; 

And round thoc now is but — to-day. 



YESTERDAY. 471 

Then what is Yesterday? — a breath, 

A whisper of the summer breeze ; 
A thing of silent birth and death, 

Colored by man's fond sympathies ! 
ft had its buds — they all are gone; 

Its fears — but they are now no more ; 
Its hopes — but they were (juicUly flown: 

Its pure delights — and they are o'er ! 

Look ye not back — save but to glean 

From the deep memories of the past, 
From the illusions of each scene. 

The thought, tliat time is flying fast ; 
That vanity on things of Earth 

Is by a pointed diamond writ ; 
Its liours of wild and transient mirth 

Are midnight skies by meteors lit ! 

Oh, what is Yesterday ? — a ray 

Which burst on Being's troubled wave ; 
Which passed like a swift thought away 

Unto Eternity's wide grave ; 
A star whose light hath left the sky — 

But for a little moment given ; 
Scarce flickering on the gladdened eye ; 

Ere it hath left the vault of Heaven ! 

To-day ! — How in its little span, 

The interests of an endless state, 
Beyond the feverish life of man. 

Are crowded with their awful weight ! 
Prayers may ascend ; the soul may pour 

Its trembling supplications here. 
That when Time's fitful hour is o'er 

Its hopes of Heaven may blossom there ! 



478 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE NAMELESS GRAVE. 

'Tis a calm spot in Summer's hour and in the dawn of Spring, 
While buds come up, like freshening thoughts when Youth is on the 

wing : 
Here, while the unfolding gates of Day, are opening free and wide, 
And glory robes the landscape round, in un unsullied pride; 
While the amber clouds that gem the West are melting in the sun; 
And, lessening in his radiant smije, through the far ether run: 
Here, where beneath the sanctity of the bright azure sky, 
The new-born birds are dancing on the south wind's fragrant sigh ; 
Where the sun-lit brook sends on the ear the prattle of its wave, 
And melts upon the vernal shore, is placed a nameless Grave! 

A haunt for monitory thought on life's dull scene is this, 

A lesson on its fleeting hour, its little day of bliss: 

No sculptured marble marks the spot where this dull clay is laid; 

No sigh is breathed, save of the gale, in the dim cypress shade! 

And who this wasting breast hath lov'd, the still grave answers not; 

'Tis only known its throbs are hush'd, its weariness forgot: 

The clod hath sent its hollow sound up from the coffin-lid: 

The farewell hath been spoken — the familiar face been hid! 

And where are they, who once did stand beside this nameless mound, 

And felt the unhealed pang of Grief — the bosom's secret wound? 

The love they bore, the tears they shed ? oh, who the tale na^y VfW ! 

The fitful winds no record keep, what sorrows then befell; 

The sunny brook goes babbling on ; the Spring-leaves come and ip. 

Yet they waken not the heart that here lies mouldering and low : 

These ashes will not hve again till the dim skies abroad 

Are as a scroll, and Earth and Sea heave in the breath of God. 



THE ALPS. 473 



THE ALP S. 

Proud monuments of God ! sublime ye stand, 

Among the wonders of His mighty hand : 

With summits soaring in the upper sky, 

Where the broad day looks down with burning eye . 

Wlierc gorgeous clouds in solemn pomp repose, 

Flinging rich shadows on eternal snows : 

Piles of triumi)hant dust, yo stand alone, 

And hold in kingly state a peerless throne. 

Like olden conquerors, on high ye rear 
The regal ensign and the shining spear ; 
Round icy peaks the mists, in wreaths unroll'd, 
Float ever near, in purple or in gold : 
And voiceful torrents, sternly rolling there. 
Fill with wild music the unpillared air : 
What garden, or what hall on earth beneath. 
Thrills to such tones as o'tn- the moimtains breathe ? 

There, through long ages past, those summits shone, 
When morning radiance on their state was thrown : 
There, when the summer day's career was done. 
Played the last glory of the sinking sun : 
There, sprinkling beauty o'er the torrent's shade, 
The chastened moon her glittering rainbow made : 
And, blent with pictured stars her lustre lay. 
Where to still vales the free streams Icap'd away. 

Where arc the thronging hosts of other days, 
Whose banners floated o'er the Alpine ways ? 
Who through their high defiles to battle wound, 
While deadly ordnance stirr'd the heights around ? 
Gone like a dream which melts at early morn, 
When the lark's anthem through the sky is borne; 



474 :.! I S C E L I. A X E O U S POEMS. 

Gone like the lines that melt in ocean's spray, 
And chill Oblivion munnurs — ichere are they? 

Yet 'Alps on Alps' still rise — the lofty home 

Of storms and eagles, where their pinions roam : 

Still round their peaks the magic colors lie 

Of moi'n or eve, imprinted on the sky ; 

And still, when kings and thrones shall fade and fall, 

And empty crowns lie dim upon the pall ; 

Still shall their glaciers flash — their waters roar, 

Till nations fail, and kingdoms rise no more. 



THE YOUTHFUL DEAD. 4*75 



'^HE YOUTHFUL DEAD. 

' . "'p not for the Youthful Dead, 
Sle^ ■? in their lowly bed ; 
They ^ '"appier llian we, 
Ilowsoev,,. 'est we be I' 

I. 

Can the sigh be poured for the Early Dead, 

On their j)illo\vs of dust reposing ? 
Should the tear of Pain, in that hour be shed, 

When the earth o'er their slumber is closing ? 
Should the winds of heaven in Evening's hour 

Bear the sighs of the laden bosom; 
When the Young are l)orne from AlHiction's power. 

Like the Spring's luisulUed blossom? 
Ere the bhght of crime on the spirit came — 
Ere passion awakened its inward flame : 
While the lieart was pure, while the brow was fair, 
Ere the records of Evil had gathered there ? 

II. 
They have passed from the shadows that haunt us round, 

From the clouds that enthral existence, 
When we look at Youth in the backward ground, 

And at Death in the foi-ward distance! 
No more will the sombre pall of Fate, 

Like a mantle around them gather; 
They have gone, ere Affection grew desolate, 

Or Hope's garland began to wither: 
And they sleep like stars in the upper air. 
When the skies of evening are deep and fair; 
There's a halo of peace where their ashes lie, 
As the ambient night-winds arc hurrying by. 

III. 
They are blest in death! — for no bitter care 

Will the fevered brow be flushing: 
They departed while Being vyas bright and fair, 

While the fountains of Feeling were gushing; 



476 M I S C K I. L A X K O U S POEMS. 

Then let tluMd sleep 'in their lowly bed;' 

Let Hope be amidst our sorrow; 
There is peace in the Night of the Early Dead — 

It will yield to a glorious morrow! 
They will rise like buds from the glebe of spring, 
When the young birds play on the changeful wiug ; 
They faded ere sin could beguile the breast ; 
They will wake in the regions of Endless Rest! 



OLD SOXGS. 477 



OLD SONGS. 



GiVK me the songs I loved to hear, 

In sweet and sunny days of yore; 
Which came in gushes to my e;u' 

From lips that breathe them now no more ; 
From lips, alas! on which the worm, 

In coiled and dusty silence lies, 
Where many a loved, lamented form 

Is hid from Sorrow's filling eyes ! 

Yes ! when tliose unforgotten lays. 

Come trembling with a spirit-voice, 
I mind me of those early days, 

AVhen to respire was to rejoice : 
When gladsome flowers and fniitage shone 

Where'er my willing footstep fell ; 
When Hope's bright realm was all mine own, 

And Fancy whispered, 'All is well.' 

Give me old songs ! They stir njy heart 

As with some glorious trumpet-tone : 
Beyond the reach of modern art. 

They rule its thrilling cords alone, 
Till, on the wings of thought, I fly, 

Back to that boundary of bliss, 
Which once beneath my childhood's sky 

Embraced a scene of loveliness ! 

Thus, when the portals of mine ear 

Those long-remembered lays receive, 
They seem like guests, whose voices cheer 

My breast, and bid it not to grieve : 
They ring in cadences of love. 

They tell of dreams now vanished all ; 
Dreams, that descended from above — 

Visions, 't is rapture to recall I 



•1:78 M I S C E r- L A N E O T; S POEMS. 

Give me old songs ! I know not why, 

But every tone they breathe to me 
Is fraught with pleasures pure and high, 

With honest love or honest glee : 
They move me, when by chance I hear. 

They rouse each slumbering pulse anew ; 
Till every scene to memoiy dear 

Is pictured brightly to my view. 

I do not ask those sickly lays 

O'er which affected maidens bend ; 

.Which scented fops are bound to praise. 
To wJiich dull crowds their homage lend ; 

Give me some simple Scottish song. 
Or lays, from Erin's distant isle ; 

Lays that to love and truth belong. 
And cause the saddest lip to smile ! 



DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN. 479 



DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN. 

' Ah I weladay I most angeliUe of face, 
A childe, young- in his pure innocence, 
Tender of limbes, God wote full guiltilesse, 
The goodly faire Unit lietli here speechelesse. 
A mouth he has, but wordis hatli he none ; 
Cannot complain, alas I for none outrage, 
Ne grutcheth not, but lies here all alone, 
Still as a lanibe, most nieUe of his visage : 
What heart of Steele could do to him damage. 
Or suffer him die, beholding the nianere, 
And look benign of liis twin eyen clere ?' 

LVDOATE. J 

YouKG mother, he is gone ! 
HLs dimpled cheek no more will touch thy breast ; 

No more the musio-tone 
Float from his lips, to thine all fondly press'd ; 
His smile and happy laugh are lost to thee : 
Earth must his mother and his pillow be. 

His was the morning hour, 
And he had pass'd in beauty from the day, 

A bud, not yet a flower, 
Tom, in its sweetness, from the parent spray ; 
The death-wind swept him to his soft repose, 
As frost, in spring-time, blights the early rose. 

Never on earth again 
Will his rich accents charm thy listening ear. 

Like some iEolian strain. 
Breathing at eventide serene and clear ; 
His voice is choked in dust, and on his eyes 
The unbroken seal of peace and silence lies. 

And from thy yearning heart, 
Whose inmost core was warm with love for bim, 

A gladness must depart, 
And those kind ej'es with many tears be dim; 
While lonely memories, an unceasing train, 
Will turn the raptures of the past to pain. 



480 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Yet, mourner, while the day- 
Rolls lilve the darkness of a funeral by, 

And hope forbids one ray 
To stream athwart the grief-discolor'd sky ; 
There breaks upon thy sorrow's evening gloom 
A trembling lustre from beyond the tomb. 

'Ti.s from the better land ! 
There, bathed in radiance that mound them springs, 

Thy loved one's wings expand ; 
As with the choiring cherubim he sings, 
And all the glory of that Goo can see, 
Who said, on earth, to children, ' Come to me.' 

3Iother, thy child is bless'd : 
And though liis presence may be lost to thee. 

And vacant leave thy brcasi, 
And miss'd, a sweet load from tliy parent knee; 
'I'liough tones familiar from thine ear have pass'd, 
Thou'it meet thy first-born with his Lord at last. 



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